That Heinous Scarf
by ClumsyMooseProductions
Summary: It all began with a scarf. Drarry. Re-written, re-uploading.
1. one

A/N: Okay, so, you all deserve an explanation for all of this. Basically, this story is not writing itself like it used to, and so what I'm doing right now is going back and re-writing everything. I'm going to make the story into more of a cohesive plotline and make sure that it all makes sense, plus just kind of change a few things.

I really am sorry. Please just stick with this, and know that I will be finishing this story even if it kills me.

I'll be uploading the re-uploaded chapters every few weeks, then trying to get some new chapters up soon. My goal is to have this finished by the end of this school year, so just bear with me here. I love you all, and thanks for putting up with all this. You're all amazing.

* * *

**That Heinous Scarf**

**Chapter One.**

* * *

It all began with a scarf, left in the Potions room one fateful afternoon. A Gryffindor scarf, of course—no self-respecting Slytherin left their possessions about for any plebian to pilfer. Of course, no Slytherin would pair red and gold together, wrap said red-and-gold object about their neck, and not have the decency to hang themselves.

Draco Malfoy picked up the scarf that as he left the classroom, sneering at the colors. Heating Draughts had been the work for that day, and he supposed some blithering idiot had tested their potion on themselves and discovered that it worked a bit too well. Probably Longbottom or the Weasel. Ah well. Draco shoved the offensive scarf into his bookbag and left the classroom, already plotting to frame some Gryffindor for one of his own schemes. As he strode out of the classroom towards the great hall, a short leech by the name of Pansy latched herself onto his free arm.

"Draco…" she cooed ingratiatingly. "You've hardly spent any time with me in the past few days! I've been so lonely without my Drakie-poo… promise me we'll go to Hogsmeade together this weekend?"

Draco shuddered involuntarily. "Pansy, I'm so sorry." _Not. "_Remember that Potions essay we have due Monday? I haven't even started. I don't think I'll be able to leave the common room, much less school grounds." _And even if I could, I wouldn't be spending time with you._

Pansy pouted, her lower lip jutting out far past her upper. This didn't quite achieve the sex kitten look she'd been originally planning on, rather, it made her look rather like a deranged baboon. With bangs. "But we've hardly been seeing each other lately… Draco, are you going out with someone else?"

Draco cringed. He and Pansy had never been going out in the first place, so there really couldn't be someone 'else'. Racking his brains for a way to tell Pansy that without being hexed within an inch of his life as a result, Draco heard a voice sounding remarkably like his own casually say "Actually, I have been seeing someone as of lately."

"Who?" Pansy challenged.

Reaching into his bookbag, Draco pulled out the heinous Gryffindor scarf and wrapped it around his neck. Barely resisting the urge to hang himself off the nearest tower, he said "The owner of this scarf, as a matter of fact." He mentally patted himself on the back for his quick thinking, though the urge to incinerate either the scarf or himself _and _the scarf was becoming harder and harder to ignore.

Pansy's resemblance to a deranged baboon was getting stronger by the second, and Draco half expected her to go off and do… well, whatever it was that deranged baboons did. She began to speak again, but this time was interrupted by a confused voice from behind the pair.

"Malfoy? What in God's name are you doing wearing my scarf?"

Draco mentally apologized for everything bad he had ever done in his life, hoping that instant forgiveness would be granted and the boy standing behind him wasn't the worst possible Gryffindor to ever be the owner of the heinous garment currently wrapped around his neck. Unfortunately, instant redemption was a bit out of the question at this point. Bollocks.

Pansy gasped. "Draco… you… that's… Potter's… scarf?"

Draco quickly regretted not having hung himself when he had the chance to do so in a dignified manner. "Harry," he said, his voice in the general area of about six octaves higher than normal. "Your… scarf? I just wanted to keep it for you. Until we saw each other later."

Pansy's expression was now less akin to a deranged baboon than it was to a very confused baboon. One who has perhaps been teleported to Mars and back in the blink of an eye, only to have the other baboons laugh at it when it tells its story. Poor baboon.

"Draco… you and… Potter—"

"Are a couple. Indeed." Finished Draco.

Potter was looking rather like his brain had just exploded, and the pieces scattered to faraway places. He shook himself, then looked Draco. "Malfoy, what's—"

"No need to worry, Harry, I told Pansy all about us." Draco stalked towards the other boy, trying to mentally impress upon Potter the importance of not fucking this up for him. He even tried to look pleading. Never having had to plead for anything in his life put a bit of a damper on this tactic, though, as his skills were sorely underdeveloped.

When Draco was just a few inches away from Potter's face, Harry seemed to regain his motor skills and started to say "Malf—" only to be silenced with his greatest rival's lips on his.

Behind them, Pansy gasped, but Draco was too overwhelmed with the reality of his kiss with Potter to notice. Draco leaned into the kiss, raising a hand to brace Potter's head against his own. His senses cried out in indignation as Potter pulled away, his eyes searching Draco's for some explanation for what had just happened. Draco trailed a few light kisses up Potter's jawline. He didn't know whether the tremor than ran through his rival's body was of pleasure or of repugnance, but whispered "Play along, Potter," into the boy's ear. Harry shivered again, then closed his eyes.

Draco leaned in again, only to find that Potter had met him halfway. Draco ran his tongue along Harry's lower lip, then nibbled softly. Harry moaned quietly, the sound alone sending chills up his spine. Draco neither noticed nor cared that Pansy was currently fending off a gigantic nosebleed, he was so intoxicated by Potter's smell—something spicy, but sweet—to detect anything short of a nuclear war. The two boys fought for domination over the kiss, Draco finally winning and shoving the other boy roughly up against the wall behind him. Draco gradually moved from kissing Potter's lips to his jaw down to his neck, where he alternated between gently pressing his lips to the boy's soft flesh and roughly biting. Hopefully this was convincing. Oh, God, that felt good. Just an act. Just an act.

"MALFOY, WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN'S BEARD ARE YOU DOING TO MY BEST MATE?"

Draco groaned, completely in relief. There was no annoyance at the interruption, no reaction to the way –oh God, why did that stop?—that the other boy had been nibbling on his ear. Just relief. No need to continue. Oh, goodie.

Harry stuttered, realizing that his best friend had just seen him being kissed—and quite passionately, at that—by his arch-rival. Draco grimaced as he realized that Weasley wasn't going just disappear in a puff of smoke, as he would in any fair world.

"What the hell does it look like I was doing, Weasel?" Draco said with his signature smirk. He turned to Potter again and pressed a soft kiss to his lips—purely for affect, of course—murmuring "Meet me in the Room of Requirement tonight. Ten 'o' clock." His mouth twisted in amusement when he realized the green-eyed boy was still panting. "And don't you dare be… late." He whispered. Sauntering off in a decidedly cheerful manner, Draco whistled a few bars of something light and cheery as he passed the stunned redhead. Weasley turned to Potter, who had slumped into a heap in the base of the wall.

"What in hell's name was that, mate?"

* * *

Draco paced the Slytherin common room anxiously, his shoes making a soft scuffing noise on the dungeon floors. What the hell had that been? He could completely understand the whole kiss thing, that had just been necessary for his plan. Genius plan, really. But what the hell was he doing? Telling Potter to meet him later?

Why did it have to be Potter, for god's sake? POTTER. There were plenty of other Gryffindors. There were plenty of idiotic Gryffindors who could have left their scarves behind. The whole house was full of idiots, actually. Any one of them would have been preferable to sodding Potter.

Draco sighed, ceasing his pacing to slump into a heap at the base of one of the many sculptures lining the common room. What the hell was he going to tell Potter when he met him in the Room of Requirement? Er, sorry old chap, but I'm not gay, you see, and I was just trying to make sure that Pansy wouldn't try and take me to Hogsmeade this weekend, you know, so that's that I guess. Spiffing. Let's just go about our daily dose of hatred, now, and call it quits.

Yeah. That was going to go over really well. Either Harry was a much better actor than Draco had ever thought, or Potter had been hiding that he fancied him for a very long time.

* * *

"…so, you've fancied Malfoy for a very long time, then?" Hermione asked, a puzzled expression on her face.

Ron sat bolt upright on the sofa behind her, screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'LL DO ANYTHING AS LONG AS YOU DON'T MAKE ME WATCH THEM KISS! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" and fell back into a dead faint.

Harry winced. "About three years, give or take a few months."

"Oh. I…see." Hermione said, the puzzled expression becoming more pitying than anything else. "So the reason you didn't tell your two closest friends that you're gay and you like your arch-rival is…what?"

Harry slouched down in his chair. "I figured you two would both react… well, sort of like Ron did." He sighed, looking at his best friend. "Must you state it so bluntly?"

"Terribly sorry to not tell you sooner, but I've known you're gay for Malfoy for a while." Hermione said nonchalantly as she finished her Potions essay with a flourish. It wasn't due until the next Monday, but she wanted to go into Hogsmeade this weekend rather than deal with Harry and Ron trying to copy.

"…"

"What? It's fairly obvious. At every turn, you obsess over him. It doesn't matter what happened, you think it's Malfoy. You see some way to bring him into everything. You blame everything on him. Really, you're obsessed with him."

"…"

"Harry? Are you alright?"

"How the hell do girls do that?" Harry asked, his voice trailing off into a squeak at the end.

"It's not something to do with being a girl, Harry, it has to do with being observant. You know… paying attention to things aside the boy you're in love with?"

Harry grimaced. "Is that even possible? It's Malfoy, for crying out loud."

* * *

Draco slammed his head into the base of the statue, the impact jarring his brain. Why had he done that? Why hadn't he just told Pansy he wasn't going out with her, that he didn't like her? Why did he feel the need to overcomplicate things? WHY THE HELL HAD HE KISSED POTTER?

"Planning what to wear for your little rendezvous, Potter-lover?" Blaise asked, sitting down gracefully with his back against the wall next to Draco. "Or what _not_ to wear, moreover?"

Draco groaned. "Zabini, get the fuck away from me. You're not helping. How the hell do you even know what happened?" He'd really been hoping it was all a bad dream.

"Your little girlfriend is up there crying her eyes out because her 'Drakie' has dumped her."

"The hell I did. I merely informed her that we were never going out. And how the hell does she have time to gossip if she's supposedly crying her eyes out?" It still could be a bad dream, couldn't it? Of course it could. Just a really long one.

Blaise raised his voice to a shaky falsetto and batted his eyes ingratiatingly at Draco. "Oh, darling, -sob- it's the worst thing, -sob- my Drakie… -sob- he dumped me for Potter! -sob- THE HORROR! -sob-"

"I'm nobody's Drakie." Draco said condescendingly. "Malfoys do not appreciate nicknames that end in –ie. It's undignified and… and… well, it's undignified. And obnoxious." This had to be a bad dream. Really.

"Be you'd be Potter's Drakie. So tell me, how long have you two been an item? And why has no one heard about it? Potter doesn't really seem the type to keep his mouth shut. More the type to be shagged silly and wander around in a lovesick haze. Unless you've been the one doing the shagging… no, I doubt that. You don't seem like a top."

Draco slammed his head into the wall repeatedly, trying to shake the fact that his best friend was insinuating that he was a bottom. And in a relationship with Potter. And gay, for that matter. But he was most indignant about the bottom part.

"Neither of us has been 'shagged silly', as you so tastefully put it. Honestly, Zabini, I have no idea how an insolent bastard with no tact got into Slytherin at all. You'd be better off in Hufflepuff."

Blaise grinned. "I may be an insolent bastard, but I'm an insolent bastard with style."

"You still have no tact."

"Ah, but I have killer abs."

"Stop changing the subject. You have no tact. Slytherins should be tactful. It's only logical."

"I have plenty of tact when I want to."

"Since when?"

"I just never want to. So tell me, Draco, what are you wearing tonight?"

Draco grunted and stalked off to his room so he could nurse the growing lump on the back of his head in private. That… and decide what to wear.

* * *

Harry was in a similar dilemma, though he had no lump on the back of his head. He did, however, have a best friend who would sit up, scream something derogatory about him and Malfoy, then fall back in a dead faint. Roughly every three minutes. Hermione was trying to find some way to calm Ron down, but he wasn't really responding. Being in a dead faint will do that to you sometimes.

Throwing open his trunk, Harry discovered that he had approximately… one choice. Damn his lack of laundry planning. All he had left was a single pair of robes and a pair of boxers. Said boxers had been a joke gift from Ron a few years earlier, and said "Ho, ho, ho" all over the silken material.

Harry was quickly found to be nursing a lump on his head of his very own.

* * *

Draco anxiously paced the Room of Requirement, noticing the slight strain in his legs from all the pacing he'd been doing that day. If nothing else good came out of this talk with Potter, at least the anticipation would have given him a good workout. Perhaps anticipation wasn't the right word, though. Anxiety was closer. After all, was anxiety not a normal emotion for this sort of thing?

Sighing, Draco slipped into a chair that seemed to have formed itself when he had turned around. What was this sort of thing, exactly? He didn't know what on earth he'd gotten himself into. Did Potter think they were really going out? They certainly weren't.

But what did Potter think was going to happen? And what would Harry say when he had to tell him that Draco had needed a prop for an elaborate scheme to avoid going out with Pansy and that he'd just grabbed Potter as the nearest breathing object?

Honestly, Draco had less tact than Blaise himself at times. He knew he couldn't just let Harry down. That would be mean, and, well, cruel. Even though Slytherins were supposed to be cruel, Draco couldn't bring himself to hurt Harry's feelings in that way.

…but apparently he could bring himself to call him Harry. When exactly had that happened?

* * *

Harry sighed and slipped the boxers on. The silky fabric glided all too easily across his skin, and the only thing he could think of was how easily it could come off again with Draco's nimble fingers tugging at it. Mmm, Draco.

Crap. Bad mind. Bad, bad, bad mind. Trying to keep everything PG… and failing miserably.

Shrugging, he slipped his robes on over his boxers. He really wished he had some sort of normal clothes that were even vaguely clean, but he had been wearing his clothes for Quidditch and with sixth-year homework he hadn't had time to do anything and all of his jeans were wearing out, so even if he knew a basic cleaning spell that wouldn't have helped. That long-winded excuse had absolutely nothing to do with how much quicker it was to get robes off than the relative time it took to get jeans off. Nothing whatsoever.

Pulling the Marauder's Map out of his trunk, he checked to see if Draco had left the dungeons yet. Not seeing Draco's name anywhere on the map, he assumed he should already be in the Room of Requirement. Although why Draco would want the room to be Unplottable for this meeting he really had no idea. Unless this really did mean something.

Which it probably didn't.

He was probably just overthinking things, really. It didn't mean anything. It was just a kiss. Kisses really didn't mean anything. They never did.

He wanted it to, though.

* * *

A/N: So, yes. Here is the first of the edited and re-uploaded chapters. The new ones will be up soon. Please note that I'm NOT changing major plot points, just making the story flow more. 


	2. two

A/N: Goodness, FanFiction hates me. This site, I mean.

Oh well.

Here's chapter two of the rewrites, as well.

* * *

**That Heinous Scarf**

**Chapter Two.**

* * *

Harry strode back and forth outside the entrance that had melted out of the wall. How on earth was he supposed to go in there? 'Hello, Malfoy, I happen to have had a really huge crush on you for the last few years and today's events have been a bit of a catalyst, so would you mind just trying that whole kissing thing again? Thanks awfully.'

That was sure to go over really well. But nothing made sense in light of that day's happenings, and the worst that could happen was… well, Harry getting his heart broken. And going completely off the deep end. So really, he had a lot to lose. But he was never going to know anything if he didn't walk in there. And he was getting a bit of a cramp in his leg… all this pacing was quite good exercise.

He turned around for the last time and walked up to the door, turning the golden knob and pausing. This was his last chance to back out. How anti-climactic. Smiling to himself, he pushed the door open and walked in.

The door creaked as it opened, and Draco jumped slightly. He turned around to see his… arch-rival? Somehow that didn't really seem like it fit anymore. Besides, the raven-haired boy wasn't 'his' anything.

He saw… Harry Potter standing in the doorway, his face slightly flushed. The two boys looked at each other for a moment, Draco calmly regarding the other boy. Harry bit his lower lip and shifted his weight from foot to foot in nervousness, hoping his discomfort wasn't obvious.

"So—"

"Well—"

"Sorry." The two boys chorused.

"You—"

"We—"

"…sorry." They repeated woefully.

Draco smiled, the expression looking strangely foreign on his face. "Why don't you sit down, Potter, and we can at least attempt a somewhat normal conversation." Because that is completely possible right now. Yes. Definitely.

Harry crossed the room in a few strides and slumped himself across an over-stuffed armchair that had appeared near the fire. Draco winced at the other boy's complete and utter lack of posture, but bit his tongue.

"So… what exactly happened today?" Harry asked bluntly.

Draco grimaced. "You've less tact than Blaise, Potter."

Harry smiled regretfully. "Gryffindor. We don't do tact. We go charging in and yell at the top of our lungs about whatever's first and foremost on our minds. So tell me. What was that?"

"What was what?" Draco said facetiously, hoping Potter had forgotten all about it.

"The… kiss. I want to know what it was. Why? What happened?" Harry paused momentarily, then just came out and said it. "Doyoulikemeornot?"

Draco looked remarkably confused. His face was really not accustomed to all of these different expressions that it had been forced into today, and it refused to look properly confused. He looked an odd combination of afraid and condescending. Apparently that was as close as he came to confused. "I beg your pardon? Dwight for naught? Who's Dwight?"

Harry blushed, then repeated himself. "I asked… well, if you like me or not." He tried to mentally prepare himself for the answer, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

Draco choked on absolutely nothing, then proceeded to cough like one of his lungs was going to pop out any second now. "Do… do… do I like you? Potter, I've spent the last six years of my life despising every inch of your body, loathing your very existence, and now you've just popped out and asked if I like you?"

"Pretty much." Harry said glumly. "If it helps at all, I can't really believe I just asked that either."

Draco sighed. "Look, Potter, I know you got something out of this whole… thing, but I just needed an excuse not to go to Hogsmeade with Pansy this weekend. That's all. I'm… I'm sorry." He was surprised to find how true the sentiment was… he really did feel sorry, in spite of himself.

arry felt remarkably like someone had just ripped his heart out and stomped on it with really pointy high heels. "So… that meant nothing to you? Nothing?"

Draco went against every instinct he had to say "No. Nothing."

Harry fought the lump in his throat and the tears which threatened to fall. It really hadn't meant anything. Somehow he'd known that, but he'd allowed himself to hope. He'd hoped that Draco had felt the same way, that the Slytherin had hidden the same attraction that he had. Obviously, he had been wrong. It was foolish, really, to expect something like that to happen. Nothing like that happened outside of the movies.

"Well… I guess that's it, then." Harry said remorsefully.

Draco turned away. "I guess so."

The second Draco got back to the common room, Blaise pounced. "Soooo, Draco…" he purred. "How's your lover? You seem to be walking fine… what about our dear Potter?"

Draco groaned. "Blaise, I don't want to talk about it."

"Awww, but I want to know everything. What was he wearing? What wasn't he wearing?"

"Blaise, just because you're a perverted, bisexual braggart doesn't mean the rest of us want to talk about our sexual exploits or lack thereof. I'm going to bed."

"But Draco—"

"I said I don't want to talk about it. Good night."

* * *

Harry had slid past the portraits into the common room and started up the stairs to his dormitory when Hermione spoke.

"It… didn't go well, then?"

Harry turned to his best friend and smiled ruefully. "Not so much. It meant nothing to him. Absolutely nothing."

Wordlessly, Hermione walked over to Harry and hugged him. Every emotion he had felt in the last eight hours slammed into him at once, and his eyes welled up. "It's not fair, Hermione."

"I know."

* * *

The first sight Draco saw the next morning was not exactly what he was hoping to wake up to. He had had a lovely dream, really. He couldn't remember what it had been about, but he woke up in a nice, calm manner.

Then he realized Blaise was sitting on his lap with his face uncomfortably close to Draco's own nose.

The resulting squeal deafened people in the surrounding rooms, and Blaise was flung halfway across the room by his best friend curling up into a really tiny ball and rocking back and forth in fetal position.

"Blaise, what the hell was that?" Draco said, his voice abnormally high.

Blaise groaned. The stupid twit was always overreacting, and Blaise was always the one who ended up with grievous bodily harm. "Draco, you arse. I was just trying to make sure I got to you before anyone else did."

Draco made various noises of frustration and anger. "You— wha— how— WHAT THE HELL, BLAISE?"

"Draco, you idiot." Blaise sighed as he conjured up some ice for his head. "I need to know what you said to Potter last night, and quickly. Pansy's been speculating all night whether you and Potter made up or broke up. If it's the latter, she says you have no reason to avoid her or not go to Hogsmeade with her this weekend. Or date her."

"What? But… she… we… no, Blaise, no! I don't like Pansy."

"Well, I know that, and you know that, but she's become vaguely obsessed with you, and apparently does not know that. She's practically stalking you. I don't think Millicent got any sleep last night because Pansy spent the whole damn time speculating about your little date with Potter. So, I need to know what the hell happened."

Draco exhaled slowly, then turned away from his friend. "I told him the truth."

"…which is…" Blaise said expectantly, waving his hand in a general 'go on' manner.

"I don't like him. I never did. I don't even know what happened between us."

Blaise smirked. Maybe people who hadn't known Draco as long as he had would have believed him, but Draco was practically transparent when he was sleepy. "Draco Malfoy, you're a liar."

"It was a kiss, that's all. Blaise, you of all people should know that a kiss means nothing."

"Draco. You're grumpier than usual and you can't stop talking about Potter, you've never shown an interest in girls. Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

"I'm not a lady."

"That's entirely beside the point. You like Potter."

"I don't."

Blaise grimaced. "Well, you have to pretend to like him, at least."

"What? Why the hell would I have to do that?"

"It's either that or be molested by Pansy. Take your pick."

"NEITHER, Blaise. NEITHER." Draco said angrily.

"Nope, sorry. Not an option."

"Blaise, I think I managed to break his heart yesterday. You expect me to just waltz up to him and say 'Oh, hi, sorry about yesterday, I was kidding, really, I do like you, now pretend to go out with me so that my creepy stalker won't tackle me every time I round a corner'?"

"Pretty much. Except you probably shouldn't tell him any of that."

"…"

* * *

Harry awoke that morning with a sense of impending doom, unlike his blonde counterpart. At first he didn't know quite why, but then realized that his arch-rival was most likely telling the entire school that he'd basically confessed to liking him. Oh. Yeah. That.

He made his way down to the common room, greeting Seamus and Dean as they tried to build a castle out of cards. He thought that was Ron's deck for Exploding Snap, but he didn't really know. Or care, for that matter.

Exiting through the portrait-hole, Harry made his way down to the hall for breakfast. Even people who had just been dumped needed to eat, the only rational part of his brain claimed. Even though he couldn't really be dumped if he'd never gone out with anyone. He hardly even noticed the flash of green before it pulled him into an alcove right outside the great hall.

"Potter, we need to talk."

Harry's throat felt about as dry as the Sahara in less than a tenth of a second. Of course. God must seriously hate him to throw the one person he didn't want to talk to into a chatty mood all of a sudden.

"Look, I know we didn't exactly part on the best of terms last night, but—"

"Malfoy, there's nothing I could possibly have to say to you. If you would like to retain full use of all of your limbs into old age, I suggest you take your hands off of me right now." Harry's voice was calm, but every muscle in his body was tense. Draco had to admire the control Harry had over his tone, really—most of the people he knew couldn't control themselves half as well. And Draco knew Death Eaters.

"Really, Potter, you have to listen to me." Draco's voice sounded… earnest. There was almost a note of pleading in there.

"Malfoy, I don't have to do anything to or for you. Now get your fucking hands off of me."

"Potter, I'm serious. I need you to help me." Draco sounded almost frantic, his voice getting higher as he finished speaking.

"…Draco? Is that you, Drakie?" Pansy's voice echoed off the stone halls in a menacing manner. Draco could have sworn that he heard the screams of a thousand tortured souls burning in hell. That, or someone had locked a banshee in the bathrooms again. Either way, it sounded remarkably like a harbinger of doom to his frenzied ears.

Draco looked into the other boy's eyes. "I'm sorry." He whispered as he shoved the other boy against the wall and kissed him.

Harry tried to pull away from the other boy, but the wall kind of got in the way of that. Walls do generally tend to be fairly solid. When Harry discovered that this wall was substantial (as so many walls are) he tried to push himself away from the wall enough to maneuver away from the body so efficiently holding him in place.

Draco, however, didn't see it that way. Harry's motions made it seem like the shorter boy was leaning into the kiss, pressing his lips harder to Draco's. Draco groaned in the back of his throat, vaguely aware of Pansy's gasp as she rounded the corner to come upon the entwined pair.

Harry melted into the kiss, all pretenses of struggling forgotten. How did this boy have so much power over him? How was one kiss suddenly making all of his morals and principles seem pointless? And why, oh why, did Draco's teeth nibbling on his lower lip feel so good?

Draco realized that he wasn't doing this just for Pansy's sake. He wanted this, wanted Harry. He didn't know how to say it in words, but something had changed. Actions always did speak louder than words, though, mused that one leftover rational portion of his brain. So he might as well make these ones yell.

Harry gasped as Draco slipped his hands under his shirt, the feather-light pads of his fingers ghosting over the sensitive skin. He'd never really thought of his midriff as a vessel for pleasure, but clearly he had some ideas to rethink. Really, he had to re-think everything. This wasn't something he could have ever predicted happening, especially after last night. He didn't know what had changed in Malfoy's mind, but he liked it. Harry couldn't help it; he melted into Draco. In his hazy state of mind, dignity didn't matter and he just wanted to feel Draco's lips on his.

Draco gave Harry's lower lip one last bite, then pulled away. Harry made a noise of protest despite himself, wanting this moment to just go on forever. "Wha… Draco… why…" He shook himself and tried to return to some state of sanity. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Malfoy? Why do you keep fucking around like this? You say you still hate me, then kiss me like that? God, you are such a selfish bastard."

Draco was somewhere where words weren't quite reaching him. All he heard of Harry's rant was "Malfoy…fucking…kiss me like that." He was more than willing to acquiesce to said request, but when he attempted to do so he was shoved away. Ah, poor Draco. Life is terribly unfair sometimes.

Harry stormed off back to the Gryffindor commons, nearly tripping over Pansy's near-comatose body. He was tired of Malfoy doing this, and he wanted to get revenge. He didn't have a bloody clue how he was going to accomplish that, but hey, that's what best friends who just happen to be geniuses are for.

* * *

Harry stomped into the Gryffindor common room to find Dean and Seamus comparing singed eyebrows, Ron muttering something about waffles and geese as he slept, and Hermione nowhere to be found. Harry didn't want to risk trying to get into the girl's dormitory again, considering what a great success that had been the last time he'd tried that. If Harry had been thinking logically he would have realized that the Marauder's Map was terribly useful during times like these.

Harry was obviously not thinking logically.

Wandering over to Dean and Seamus, Harry sprawled himself over another one of the overstuffed chairs. He realized now that he probably should have warned them about the Exploding Snap deck, but they seemed perfectly content to compare burn marks.

"Hey, Harry, can you judge something for us?" Seamus asked playfully.

Harry grunted in response.

"Um, which one of us burnt off more of our eyebrows?"

Harry grunted once again.

"What's wrong, mate?" Dean asked, concern tingeing his words.

Harry grunted for the third time. "Have you charred idiots seen Hermione?"

Seamus pouted. "Now, Harry, that's not very nice of you."

"Hermione. Where is she?" Harry asked, losing patience with his friends.

Looking very odd without eyebrows, Dean's forehead wrinkled as he thought. "I don't know. Sorry, Harry. Why do you need to talk to her? I can pass on a message if I see her at all."

Seamus' eyes widened in recognition. "Harry, who were you snogging just now?"

"Wha— huh— Gah!" sputtered Harry. "How the hell do you figure that, Finnegan?"

Seamus raised a single finger. "One: your lips are all swollen. Two: You're stomping around in here looking for your best female friend, rather than Weasley over there. Three: When I asked, you blushed like… well, I don't know, like someone who blushes a lot. Four: YOUR LIPS, POTTER."

Harry and Dean gaped at Seamus in a shocked and disturbed manner. Well, it may have just been disturbed on Dean's part. Without eyebrows, one really can't tell. But Harry was definitely shocked.

"How the hell do you know all that?"

"Five: You didn't deny it." Seamus grinned triumphantly.

* * *

A/N: I am sorry about all the confusion. xP 


	3. three

A/N: Here's chapter three of the rewrite. I swear I mean to write more on this fic, but I've got to finish 3 oneshots by the 13th. Two AkuRoku, one ZoSan. I think. It may end up being three AkuRokus. Oh well. We all love AkuRoku anyway.

And if you don't... doom.

* * *

**That Heinous Scarf**

**Chapter Three.**

* * *

Draco Malfoy, the Pacing Prince of Slytherin, was wearing a groove into the floor in front of his bed. He didn't know what came over him when he was around Potter. Well, not so much around Potter as in fairly close quarters with Potter. 

Snogging is generally considered to be at fairly close quarters.

Blaise bounded up to the door, eager to know why Draco hadn't come to breakfast, but quickly scurried away when Draco narrowed his eyes at the over-exuberant teen. Draco growled. Some people had no respect for other people's hissy fits. Not that Draco was having a hissy fit or anything. Slytherins did _not_ have hissy fits. They didn't even sulk. They just got revenge.

Which was exactly what Draco needed to do. Get revenge on Potter for messing around with his emotions.

* * *

Harry finally extracted himself from Dean and Seamus' clutches without revealing that he had kissed his arch-rival, and continued his search for Hermione. He thought she would probably still be in the great hall, but he didn't know where Draco had gone after the… incident… and didn't exactly want to run into him again right now. Wandering in the vague direction of the library, Harry mused over the events of the past few days. He didn't even notice that his feet were taking him back to the dungeons, back to the moment that set this whole thing off. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice Hermione coming up behind him until a pair of arms draped over his shoulders and hands reached up to cover his eyes.

"Hermione." Harry said automatically, seeing as she was the only one who ever did that.

Hermione let go and stepped in front of him. "He did it again?" she queried.

"How do you—oh. Seamus and Dean." Harry said glumly.

Hermione chuckled. "Right now their bets are hedged on Lavender or Zabini."

Harry gagged instinctively. "Zabini? You've got to be kidding me."

"They've actually got a fairly good set of reasons behind it. One, you would probably tell them if it was any of the girls we know. Two, most of the girls we know are a little bit too in awe of you to do any serious kissing. And by the way your lips are still swollen, I'd say that was some pretty serious kissing."

"…What is it with Seamus and numbering everything?" Harry asked plaintively.

Hermione made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat. "Stop trying to change the subject. He kissed you again." She wasn't asking this time, more just stating a fact.

"Yeah. I don't even know why. He apologized for it, even. I don't want this to happen again."

"…Have you lost all communicative skills whatsoever? Last time I checked, 'no' was not one of the more difficult words in the English language." Hermione said dryly.

Harry winced. "Obviously you've never tried to say it when you're being kissed by Draco."

"And hopefully I won't ever get a chance to test that." Hermione said, making a disgusted face. "So. What do you want to do?"

Harry sighed. "I… I don't know what I want to do. I want to know what he really wants from me, whether this is just some game to him or what."

"Really, Harry, there's a very simple answer to this." Hermione said.

"Says you."

"Harry James Potter, stop whining and plot revenge."

* * *

Blaise Zabini was very confused. Fortunately, this was a fairly common occurrence, so no one really thought anything of it.

"Wait, so… what are we doing again?"

Draco gritted his teeth. "For the nineteenth time, Blaise, we're going to turn Potter into a girl."

Blaise wrinkled his nose in thought. "You know, that's really going to suck for Potter. I mean, can you imagine? Going to sleep a guy and waking up a girl?"

"Bloody hell, Blaise, that's the sodding concept of revenge! You don't like it! It sucks!"

"Oh. Right. But why are we getting revenge on Potter? He hasn't done anything to you."

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response, Blaise." Draco retorted. As if Potter hadn't done anything to him. He'd… well, he'd… there'd been… okay… well… he'd kissed him back. That had to count for something.

* * *

Harry blinked rather owlishly. "Hermione, have you ever considered of becoming the next James Bond?"

"No, not particularly. I never really thought that 'Granger. Hermione Granger.' had a very good ring to it." Hermione said. "Why do you ask?"

"Because this is the most brilliant plan I've ever heard."

* * *

Draco grinned impishly. No one was really used to this expression, and so most of the spots around him were empty as his fellow Slytherins sidled away. Only Blaise stuck by him, trying to keep Draco from breaking out into evil laughter. Every so often a syllable or two would escape, and people would look at Draco funnily as a muffled "BWAHAHAHA" fled his mouth.

Tensing as Harry walked through the entrance to the great hall, Draco growled softly. Blaise casually draped an arm around his friend's shoulders, putting Draco in a loose headlock. "Now, Draco," Blaise said softly. "It wouldn't do to be excessively expectant right now, now would it? Look relaxed. Laugh a bit, and turn to me like I just said something remarkably funny."

Draco plastered a smile on his face, turned to Blaise, and laughed like a maniac as his eyes seemed to turn even more bloodshot and his hands began to twitch. "Um… Draco? Nervous breakdowns are not generally considered to be a good sign." Blaise said haltingly.

"I'm getting revenge on Potter today, I'm getting revenge on Potter today, I'm getting revenge on Potter today…" Draco sang, remarkably off-key. People began to murmur in the tables around the two, those who had sidled away before now scooting away as fast as their bottoms would take them along the splintery benches.

* * *

Harry grimaced as he looked in the mirror. He looked bloody awful. "Hermione," he called. "I look like I got dressed in a broom closet or something."

"That's the point, Harry. We need to make you look like you just had the most amazing shag of your life with anyone other than Malfoy."

"Hermione…"

"No, trust me, this will work. Now, come here. You need to bite your lower lip a bit until it's swollen, then I've got some stain we can use to make your lips and cheeks look ruddier." Hermione said craftily, pulling out a small makeup kit from her bookbag.

Harry blanched. "Look, Hermione, I really appreciate this, but… I can't do this."

"Harry, you came to me having a complete and utter breakdown, wanting revenge on Malfoy. Now you just change your mind?" Hermione said, sounding more hurt than anything else. He doesn't have a backbone when it comes to Malfoy, she realized. He can't bear the thought of hurting him.

"Look, I really appreciate everything you did for me, but I'm not going to do this. I can't stoop to his level." Harry said resignedly.

"I thought you had more integrity than that," Hermione hissed. "I can't believe you, Harry." She slammed shut her makeup kit, shattering the plastic cover.

Harry fell onto the end of his bed, resting his head in his hands. He didn't know which part he felt stupider about… the fact that he had even agreed to this in the first part, or that he couldn't go through with a little bit of deception. Damn the Gryffindor in him.

* * *

Blaise tugged Draco out of the great hall, trying desperately to find some reasonable, rational explanation for why his friend was acting like an idiot. Well, one didn't usually need an explanation for that, but usually he was a more subtle idiot. For God's sake, anyone who could spend that much time lecturing others about tact really had no right to go off and proclaim to the world that he was getting revenge on his boyfriend. Sighing, he pulled Draco up the stairs to the infirmary. Madame Pomfrey was going to have a field day with this. Draco Malfoy, the Prince of Slytherin, reduced to a blithering idiot for all the world to see.

* * *

Hermione slid into the seat opposite Ron, her every motion evoking complete and utter exasperation. Ron glanced up from his constant shoveling of calories into his face and ceased immediately, swallowing the great mass of food he had in his mouth without even chewing. "What's wrong now, 'Mione?" Ron said fearfully, getting ready to duck in case Hermione decided throwing things around would alleviate her stress. 

"He's being a complete git, Ron! Even you, at your very thickest, have never just flip-flopped like this. He comes to me; practically begging for my help, then changes his mind at the last minute. He's not acting like himself at all." Hermione punctuated each word with a bang of her fist on the table, shaking every dish within a three-metre radius.

Ron flailed around, trying to stop the pitcher of pumpkin juice from falling into his lap, but eventually gave up on prolonging the inevitable. He still jumped up as the pitcher fell on the front of his robes, soaking most everything from the waist down. "Don't talk to me about Harry." Ron said, stalking off with as much dignity as he could. The large amount of pumpkin juice on his robes rather ruined the dignity part, but he was stalking off all the same.

Hermione banged her fist on the table one last time, not even caring that the entire table was giving her death glares. She hated how spineless Harry was being about this whole thing, not even caring what Draco had done to him. She'd done everything to help him, helped him come up with a stupid plan for revenge. And he repaid her by wimping out at the last second?

* * *

Madame Pomfrey tutted as Draco slithered into a chair across from her, Blaise heaving a sigh of relief as his friend's weight fell off his shoulders. He really didn't like all of the stairs in this god-awful school, especially with the infirmary on one of the higher floors. He'd gotten lost three times, and so many of the portraits refused to help anyone who associated with Malfoys. Finally he had found a portrait of one of Malfoy's ancestors, who was more than willing to utter a few snide comments and veiled insults before sending him on his way to the infirmary.

"What on earth have you done to the poor boy, Mister Zabini?" Madame Pomfrey questioned, trying to pry open Draco's eyelids to see how dilated his pupils were. He was twitching so badly that this was exceedingly difficult. "He's acting like he's having a seizure. What sort of tomfoolery have you two been up to?"

"No tomfoolery today, Madame Pomfrey." Blaise said, hesitant to reveal the full extent of everything they'd been up to recently. He didn't think the use and brewing of sex-change potions for the sole purpose of revenge was very highly looked upon by the Ministry, much less by the rules which governed Hogwarts.

Levitating Draco over to a bed in the infirmary, the short witch turned to Blaise and looked him in the eye. "Mister Zabini, if there is anything I should know, now is the time to tell me."

Berating himself for not thinking of levitating Draco's body on the climb up all those stairs, he gathered his composure and tried to bring a soothing smile to his face. "As far as I know, there aren't any extenuating circumstances in this case, Madame Pomfrey." Blaise claimed, his voice dripping sweetness. "I'm sure everything will be fine, especially with you watching over him. Call me if anything changes, will you?"

The witch smoothed her hair down, looking remarkably like a hen who was terribly proud of herself. No one was entirely immune to Blaise's charm, not even the teachers. Strutting out of the infirmary, Blaise slumped against a wall as soon as he was out of sight. What the hell had Draco gotten himself into now?

* * *

Harry wandered down to the great hall, wondering when today he was going to be pulled into an alcove and snogged mercilessly. He didn't know what he was to expect, considering the past few days. Some small part of him longed for anything connected to Draco, wanted to feel Draco's lips on his again, but the rest of him realized how pointless this all was. He didn't want things to be mindless between him and Draco. He wanted to have Draco as his, wanted to have someone to hug. Not that he didn't want someone to kiss; just that he wanted someone who would hug him as long as he needed to be hugged. Which, considering that no one had really hugged him since he was two, might be a terribly long time. 

Striding into the great hall, all he needed to see was Hermione's upturned nose and the huge splash of pumpkin juice on the floor to know what had happened. Hermione was probably still mad at him for not going through with her plan. He was almost mad at himself for not going through with it, but he knew that in the long run it would be better. Better for whom, he didn't know, but he was sure it would be better. His thoughts turned back to Draco, and he scanned the Slytherin table for the distinctive blonde hair. Blondes were few and far between at Hogwarts as it was, and other than Luna he couldn't see any other blondes whose hair was that light. He felt rather than heard a thump next to him as someone plunked themselves onto the seat, and turned to see Seamus.

"You'll never guess what happened to the git!" Seamus claimed exuberantly.

Harry blinked. "Who?"

"Don't be thick, Harry." Seamus said calmly before returning to his effusive state. "Malfoy had some sort of mental breakdown and got dragged off to the hospital wing by Zabini!"

Harry's heart jumped into his throat at the thought of anything having happened to Draco. "What? When? How long ago? Has Zabini come back yet?"

"Speaking of Zabini, is it him?" Seamus asked bluntly, the change in topic a near-complete nonsequitor.

"Is who him?" Harry said, too distracted to pay attention to grammar.

Seamus rolled his eyes. "Zabini. Is he who you kissed?"

"What? No. Where did you say Malfoy went?" Harry said, not focusing on anything beyond the general idea of MALFOY-hurt-MALFOY-breakdown-MALFOY-hug. He wasn't quite sure where the "hug" bit came from, but the repeating idea seemed to center on Malfoy.

"Hospital wing. Now, who WAS it?" Seamus asked, completely oblivious to Harry's inattention to the conversation.

"I have to go. Bye, Seamus."

"Deannnnnnn…" called the Irish boy. "You owe me ten sickles! It wasn't Zabini!"

"Sod off." Dean shot back irritably. "We never shook on it."

* * *

Harry Potter was a nervous wreck. He hadn't been able to focus on his classes at all that morning, and finally just gave up on doing anything productive. He didn't know what had happened to Draco, and all the gossipmongers were saying was that Madame Pomfrey wasn't leaving his bedside from worry. Which, had Harry stopped to think about it, was really quite a lot—considering that he had never seen Mme. Pomfrey anything less than cool and collected. However, Harry did not stop to think about anything other than Draco. He hadn't for most of the day, really. He hated how much this was tearing up any semblance of self-composure—or, for that matter, dignity—that he had thought he had left.

Oh, look at that, the tattered remnants of his sanity flying out the window. Huh. He'd thought he had some of that left, too. Apparently not.

* * *

Draco thrashed about in his confused daze, knowing neither what he was doing nor where he was. Gibberish poured out of his mouth as he tossed and turned, the sheets tangling around his legs as the fever rushed through his body. Nothing Madame Pomfrey did to lower his temperature had any effect whatsoever. She had resorted to Muggle treatments of wet cloths and ice around his temples, but these had barely more effect than any of the spells she knew. All of the students who had a spare moment kept coming in to gawk at the ill boy, not caring about the possibility of Draco's affliction being contagious. All they wanted was to gape at the poor dear. She kept shooing them out, but two more popped in for every one student that left. Finally, she realized that she couldn't keep up with the shooing and the care indefinitely, and grabbed another boy from Draco's year out of the crowd. Harry Potter, of course. She trusted him, even with all of the times he had ended up in her care for something utterly and completely idiotic. The look on his face was one of genuine worry as he pushed his way to the front of the crowd, and somehow she knew that he would care for Draco. She handed him a bucket of ice, conjuring up water to fill the vessel and a few cloths to keep Draco at a reasonable temperature.

* * *

Harry shoved his way up to the front of the bunch of students, anxiety furrowing his brow. He didn't care whose toes he was stepping on, just wanted to see for himself what had happened to Draco. Once he got to the front, Madame Pomfrey attacked him with a bucket and cloths, telling him to dab them on Draco's forehead to keep him cool. Harry was so flustered that he just stood there for a moment until the older witch shoved him towards the other boy at the end of the hospital wing, flapping her arms irritably. He shook himself back to the real world, his legs taking him towards Draco of their own accord. When he reached the end of the wing, his senses were assaulted with the raw smell of sweat and panic, the sheets tangled around Draco's slim form more than enough testimony to the horrors of whatever he was going through. Numbly pulling the sodden cloth from the bucket, he let a few solitary drops fall on Draco's temples. What had Draco done to himself?

* * *

Blaise Zabini wandered back to the great hall, not caring that he'd managed to miss all of his classes. He still had the flask Draco had been drinking from at breakfast, having grabbed it before turning the boy over to Madame Pomfrey. Knowing Draco, it had some ridiculous vintage of firewhisky in it. Uncorking the flask, he raised it to his lips and took a gulp. Man, did he ever need—ANYTHING BUT THIS. Whatever foul concoction this was, it was most certainly not firewhisky. It smelled even worse than the potion he and Draco had cooked up the previous day.

…it was the potion he and Draco had cooked up the previous day. Oh, crap. He'd forgotten to put it in Potter's breakfast. And somehow Draco's tastebuds had been so completely obliterated by his copious consumption of firewhisky that he hadn't noticed what he was drinking. Which meant…

Draco was in the hospital wing turning into a girl at this very instant.

Shit.

* * *

Harry was trying to ignore Draco's feverish moans. And failing miserably. He was getting remarkably turned on by them, as a matter of fact. Although the set of high-pitched yelps being made off-scene were a bit odd. In a dim corner of his consciousness, Harry noticed that Madame Pomfrey was arguing with another student. A very, very, very dim corner. One that had not been lit for, say, a few thousand years.

Harry jumped as a spastic Blaise Zabini skidded past Draco's hospital bed, limbs flailing as he slipped on the excess of water that had pooled at the foot of the bed. His momentum carried him forward into the (very substantial, as most of these walls did tend to be lately…) castle wall. Blaise peeled himself off the wall, feeling his nose tenderly.

"I think I broke it…" he moaned piteously. Harry ignored him, dabbing at Draco's forehead once again. "No, seriously. Where's Pomfrey?"

Harry sighed in a highly aggravated manner, pulling out his wand.

"Hey, Potter, no need to go all Dark Lord on me, I just came to warn you about—"

"Episkey. Now, Zabini, what are you warning me about?"

Blaise jumped as his nose slid back into it's original space, sighing with relief as he realized that the perfect aquiline angle of his nose would be preserved forever, and not have any effect on his ability to score with hot babes. "Erm… Draco. He's sort of… well, let's just say that you don't really need to worry about him having some strange unknown disease." Blaise looked at his feet, praying that Potter would remain as obtuse as he always had and not badger him about why Draco was actually sick.

"And why on earth would I not be worrying right now, Zabini?" Harry said, his irritation clearly showing in his voice.

"Uhhh… Uhhh…" Blaise tried to think fast, and failed miserably. He was never really good at the whole 'making-up-lies-on-the-spot' thing. He came up with a really brilliant idea to tell Potter that Draco had just slipped in Herbology the day before and swallowed part of a fever-inducing plant when he heard someone say "HE'STURNINGINTOAGIRLPLEASEDON'THURTME!" Looking around for the idiot who had said that, he caught sight of himself in a nearby mirror. Very conveniently placed, really. His nose looked really good, now that it wasn't broken. Of course, it didn't look any different, but that was kind of the point. It looked good.

"I beg your pardon, Zabini?" Harry gritted his teeth, trying very hard indeed not to kill the Slytherin boy.

Blaise squirmed uncomfortably. "Um… he's sort of turning into a girl right now. Through absolutely no fault of my own. None whatsoever."

"Through no fault of yours, he managed to somehow get himself into the undeniably messy process of turning himself into a girl."

Blaise squinted, trying to find anyway to spin that into a favorable light. It wasn't working very well. "Uh… yeah." Maybe Draco was right about this whole tact thing. Moreover, about Blaise's complete and total lack of it. Darn. He hated it when Draco was right. It happened far too often.

"What the hell did you do, Blaise?" Harry asked resignedly.

"Well, I forgot to put it into your drink and then he managed to drink it—I MEAN I DID NOTHING OF THE SORT. None of this is my fault. None of it. All Draco's fault. Completely and utterly not my fault in any way, shape, or form."

Harry rested his head in his hands. "Blaise, do you dye your hair?"

"NO, thank you very much, these highlights are completely natural. Why? Did someone tell you about the highlight kit in my room? That's not mine, by the way. I was planning on highlighting Pansy's hair with it. Yeah. Pansy's hair. Not mine, of course. I would never dye my hair. I'm rambling now, aren't I? That tends to happen when I'm nervous. Not that I'm, you know, nervous or anything. I'm completely and one hundred percent… I'm going to shut up now."

Harry chuckled in spite of himself. "You idiot. You're the blondest brunette I have ever met."

"...I'm not blonde, though."

"Moving on. You managed to turn Draco into a girl."

Blaise shook his head vehemently. "No, no, weren't you listening? This is in no way my fault. I had nothing to do with it."

Harry continued, oblivious to Blaise. "Although really, I suppose I should be thanking you. If it wasn't for your sheer idiocy, I'd be the one trembling on that bed right now."

Blaise nodded in the same vehement manner. "Yeah, so, really, Potter, you're happy that I messed up."

"...Not really. Why the heck was Draco trying to turn me into a girl?"

"Um... revenge?"

Harry's eyes flew out of his head. Not literally, of course. That would be silly. Eyes do not fly. Not on their own, at least. Harry's eyes widened, to say the least. "For what? If anyone here should be seeking revenge, it's me."

Blaise tried in vain to sidle away, coming up against yet another of those damn solid walls. "Uh... whenever he's around you, he kind of can't control himself."

"I noticed." Harry said dryly.

"Um, so. Yeah. Sort of?" Blaise was only semi-coherent at this point.

"I need to go tell Madame Pomfrey what this idiot did to himself. I'll talk to you later, fool."

* * *

Draco twitched as he woke. He was alone in a bed in the infirmary. Well, one generally is alone in a bed when they're sick. But there wasn't anyone around him. Part of him was glad not to have any idiots hovering, but part of him felt neglected and unnoticed. Poor Draco.

He sat up, noticing an uncomfortable weight on his chest. He looked down to see... he couldn't see his waist. There happened to be a rather large and opaque mound of flesh in the way.

Two. There were two of them.

Screams echoed off the castle walls as the entire school was roused from their slumber on a Saturday morning by Draco Malfoy, female extraordinaire.

Harry ran into the infirmary, shaking sleep from his eyes. Blaise had gone back to the great hall, citing his stomach as his excuse, and Harry had been left to explain the situation to Draco. Clearly this was going to be more difficult than he had ever anticipated. But then, how exactly does one explain your best friend's idiocy turning you into a girl? At least Harry was going to be the one to break it to him, and not Blaise. Anything involving Blaise most likely would have resulted in a dead Slytherin boy and a still angry Slytherin… uh… Slytherin. Harry wasn't quite sure what to classify Draco as in his—her—its current form. Shemale? No, that didn't work… Draco was technically a transvestite, though hardly by choice. He didn't think it would go over very well to refer to Draco as "the blonde tranny" and so decided that he would just refer to Draco as Draco, thus avoiding all gender complications.

Skidding on the few solitary drops of water left on the stone floor, arms flailing in a vain attempt to stop himself from looking like Blaise's shorter, green-eyed counterpart in front of Draco, Harry reached the end of a hideous run-on sentence and promptly fell flat on his bottom as his legs flew out from underneath him. Luckily enough, the only injury he received was a bad bruise to his ego. Clearly, he hadn't as much in common with Blaise as it had seemed for a moment. What a relief.

Draco's eyes were the widest Harry had ever seen, and he kept just staring at his chest and mumbling incoherently. Clearly he was in shock, and Harry could see why—even as a gay boy, he had to admit that Draco had a nice chest. For a girl, that is. Draco looked up as he realized that someone had crashed into the room, and Harry could tell that he was about to cry.

"Meef?" Draco said piteously.

Harry groaned. It was always up to him to explain exceedingly awkward situations. "You're a girl."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." Draco snarled as he gestured at his impressive chest. "You would think that anyone other than a complete and total MORON would have figured that out already, wouldn't you?"

"I wasn't finished. Why were you planning on turning me into a girl, anyway? And why on earth would you trust a blundering idiot like Blaise to help you?" Harry asked indignantly.

"Potter… can we not focus on that? There seems to be another problem here, in case you haven't noticed." Draco hissed condescendingly.

Harry nodded. "You drank the potion that was meant for me because Blaise is just too foolish to ever carry anything out that requires more than about three brain cells at any one time. You were subsequently turned into a girl. I, on the other hand, am still in possession of all my manly traits."

"I hate you." Draco sniffled. "Do you have any chocolate?"

Harry groaned. "All this and you're PMSing, too? God must hate me."

Draco wandered out of the infirmary later that morning, a Toblerone clutched in his slender fingers. He didn't know how on earth girls dealt with these massive… things on their chests all the time. They were downright annoying! He'd been getting dressed, and he couldn't see his feet over the bloody things. He didn't think anything more of them until he snuck into the Slytherin common room, praying everyone would be at breakfast. Unfortunately, Draco seemed to be suffering from a common affliction usually known as "very bad luck", sometimes abbreviated as VBL. The common room was full.

Blaise's face nearly split in two as he saw Draco come through the doorway. "DRACO!" he cried as he launched himself at his best friend. "OhmygodDraco, we were all so worried! I heard from one of the Ravenclaws who heard from one of the Hufflepuffs who heard from a Gryffindor that you would be released from the hospital wing sometime this morning and so I haven't let anyone go to breakfast because I wanted everyone to know that you were okay and—" here he paused to take a breath "—and oh my god, Draco, you have BOOBS!"

Draco wanted nothing more than to sink into the ground and die a quiet death. Alas, much like the walls in this school, the ground was also quite substantial. "Blaise… get off me." He whimpered pathetically, hating himself for every syllable that escaped his lips in that awful tone.

When Blaise finally did let go, his eyes seemed to be amazingly transfixed on the more frontal region of Draco's shirt. "Mate… you've got boobs…" he whispered in an awestruck manner.

Draco groaned. He couldn't think of anything other than the Captain Obvious quip, and he'd already used that today. Clearly all of his witty retorts had vanished along with any semblance of manliness he'd retained. "Yeah… well, really, it's all your fault." He said, pointing an accusing finger at the taller boy. Wait. Taller. Taller? Draco had been at least Blaise's height. Which meant…

"Hey, you've shrunk, too! But you grew some nice boobs…" Blaise pointed out.

"BLAISE, YOU IDIOT!" Draco squealed. "You are the most pigheaded, idiotic, perverted, self-centered… IDIOT that I have ever had the misfortune to come across!" He paused and moaned again. "My voice wasn't this high-pitched, either, was it?"

Blaise shook his head vehemently. "And you didn't have—"

"BOOBS, YES, THANK YOU, BLAISE." Draco finished aggravatedly.

Blaise smirked. "You shouldn't be wearing a white shirt that is quite that tight across them when you're in the dungeons."

"What? Why not?" Draco asked, his poor befuddled brain not having quite caught on yet.

"Errr… bit chilly down here, isn't it?" Blaise hinted.

Draco grimaced. "Blaise Zabini, of all the times for you to learn how to properly utilize tact, this is NOT the right one."

Blaise smacked himself on the forehead. "For Chrissakes, Draco, you've got tits."

"Well, of course, they seem to have come with the—oh."

"Erm, yes, well, I'm just going to kind of go this way now…" Blaise whispered as he tried to sidle away.

Draco's hand shot out and grabbed Blaise by his tie. "Blaise, you are an idiot. Now, you are my best friend, so this is somewhat forgivable, but you remain nonetheless an idiot. I swear to you that I will somehow pay you back for having Slytherin house in it's entirety see me without something covering the goddamn tits that you—in said idiocy—bestowed upon me."

"In my defense, Draco…" Blaise began, his words somewhat constricted by the tie digging in around his neck.

"No. You have no defense, you moron. You turned me into a girl. And do you even have the slightest idea how we are supposed to turn me back?" Draco hissed.

Blaise pondered this for a moment, then shook his head sadly.

"No? You don't? How sad. Because do you know what, Blaise?"

Blaise once again shook his head, looking rather scared now.

"NEITHER DOES POMFREY, YOU MORON." Draco shrieked, then stomped off into his room.

* * *

A/N: Wow, this chapter has a lot of the little line-divider thingies.

Wow.

I hope you like the rewrites! Enjoy, please. Let me know what you think if you get a chance. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

I love you alll. 


	4. four

**A/N: **Oh dear.

Yes, well, I'm a bit busy.

I swear I'm going to finish this eventually.

But right now I'm a bit busy.

But I finally finished an AkuRoku! Yes!

It's not going to be up until the 13th, though.

Ah well.

If you want more to read, check out my profile, or Blue Funk's profile, or freak.with.a.shoe, or moose.with.a.shoe.productions. All slash, varying fandoms.

* * *

Harry paced his own common room, mind whirling. Not in a literal sense, of course, but there were lots of ideas just kind of banging away at each other inside his head. The most overwhelming train of thought centered on Draco, whom he hadn't seen since that morning when the blonde had kicked him out of the hospital wing and broken down into tears. He didn't know what had happened to the other boy, or how he was handling this whole situation. Harry couldn't help but feel a nagging sense of relief that Draco and Blaise hadn't succeeded in their mad plot. He also couldn't help the fact that he wished anyone but Draco had been turned into a girl—excepting himself, of course—if only because he wasn't attracted to Draco in his current state. 

Though, to be entirely honest, he wasn't sure that was a bad thing. If he wasn't attracted to him, maybe the whole Draco thing would just pass on its own. After all, Madame Pomfrey had told him that no one had ever found another potion that would reverse the changes brought on by a sex change. He supposed that another potion would be out of the question, but he didn't quite know why. This was why he had nearly flunked Potions last semester. He assumed that Snape would probably be able to come up with some hideous concoction that would help, but he was hardly about to go and have a nice chat with the potions master on Draco's behalf. He supposed someone should probably tell Dumbledore if they hadn't already—he was sure that the headmaster would be able to come up with some sort of solution. He wandered out of the common room and out into the main hallways, mumbling to himself.

He didn't even notice that his feet had taken him to the headmaster's office until the statue blinked at him, expecting some sort of password. Harry blanked on any sort of password he could use, then blurted out "Since when do statues blink?" to the silent gargoyle. Apparently this was, in fact, the password to Dumbledore's office, as the statue turned aside with no further movements. Harry's shoes made a light scuffing noise as he trudged up the stone staircase, each step seeming like a worse idea.

"But Headmaster, how can you expect the boy to go through this and remain at school? Surely it would be less traumatizing and much safer for Mr. Malfoy to simply return home to his parents until a more suitable arrangement can be made." McGonagall's quivery voice was easily distinguishable, even in the echoing space of the stone halls.

Dumbledore sighed, the sound seeming to be more of a wheeze than anything else. "Minerva, surely you can see how such a situation as Draco has gotten himself into would be less than advantageous for his health—"

"Well, of course I can see that, the boy's been emasculated!"

"Actually, my dear, I was referring more to Lucius Malfoy's anger when he discovers his son and heir to be no longer his son, but his daughter. I'm certain you can understand why sending him home to face his father would not be the most commendable plan at this point."

McGonagall's silence was more than enough of an answer at this point. Harry crept up to the door, fear and curiosity merging at this point to drag him closer to the conversation taking place within.

"Headmaster…" Snape's oily voice broke in. "Perhaps we should take no further course of action until we have learned more about what exactly happened to… dear Draco. I would hate for us to make any hasty decisions… especially with Mr. Potter lurking outside your door."

A pair of footsteps rushed over to the door, and Harry barely had time to register his presence being discovered before McGonagall yanked him to his feet.

"What is the meaning of this, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall demanded furiously.

"I… uh… errr…" Harry responded in an extremely lucid manner, thus conveying his deepest emotions to McGonagall and explaining perfectly his exceedingly sound reasoning behind snooping outside the headmaster's office. "Y'see… eh… well… erm…"

Snape broke in. "Clearly, headmaster, Mr. Potter was searching for gossip to bring back to his /Gryffindor/ fellows. I have no doubt that had he heard more of our conversation the entire school would know Draco's delicate… condition."

"Wha— you can't honestly believe that it's been kept any sort of secret, Sn— Professor Snape." Harry sputtered indignantly.

"I trust my students." Snape declared greasily. "But clearly, Minerva, you cannot do as much. How sad… like father, like son I suppose."

Dumbledore raised a hand, and the two ceased their bickering. "Severus, please. Let bygones be bygones. I'm sure he must have some sort of explanation… Harry?"

"Actually, Professor—" Harry said. "I was coming to ask you if there was anything to be done for Draco, or whether perhaps Professor Snape would be able to brew another potion."

Snape's eyes lit up. "This was done by a potion, then? Clearly a botched potion, if it sent Mr. Malfoy into a sickness as great as his was rumored to be… now, let me think, who would want revenge on Malfoy badly enough to risk brewing a highly unstable potion with negative side affects… and who could be motivated by guilt to come and inquire as to Mr. Malfoy's condition? Clearly it would be a student with no skills whatsoever when it came to the precise art of Potions, most likely a foolishly honorable student at that… now, let me think, who could this be?" He inquired slimily.

"It wasn't me, if that's what you're thinking, PROFESSOR." Harry snarled. "You seem a bit reluctant to think that your darling Slytherins are even capable of doing wrong… speak to your precious Blaise if you want to know the real bungling fool here."

Dumbledore sighed. "Minerva, Severus, would you be so good as to allow me a moment with Harry?" The two professors muttered to themselves as they left Dumbledore's office, but acquiesced nonetheless.

Harry turned to Dumbledore. "Professor, I swear, I never—" he fell silent as Dumbledore nodded.

"I know what you are and are not capable of, Harry, and I must say that I do not believe you could or would do something like this to a fellow student." Dumbledore said, a twinkle in his eye. "However, I do believe that your motives in this case are not entirely just concern for your rival. Is there something else occurring between you and Mr. Malfoy?"

Harry squirmed slightly. "I don't quite know what to say to that, Professor. Honestly…"

"It is always better to be honest, Harry." Dumbledore interjected.

"Errr. I don't know what to say, really."

Dumbledore sighed. "Very well then, Harry. I trust that in the near future if you discover that you do in fact know what to say, you will notify me. I shall inform both Severus and Minerva that you were drawn here merely out of the goodness of your heart, and that they are not to pester you. Will that suffice?"

"Thank you, sir, really." Harry said with relief. "I'll just show myself out, then, shall I?"

"That would be fair, I think, seeing as for all practical accounts you also managed to show yourself in. Oh, and Harry?"

"Yes, Professor?"

"I do believe that your friend Ronald's older brothers have perfected their Extendable Ears, have they not?"

"…Yes, Professor…"

"I would advise you to acquire a pair of those if for any reason you decide to listen in on other people's conversations once again."

* * *

Blaise knocked timidly on his best friend's door, praying that the volcano that had taken over Draco's temper was going to be someone assuaged by the copious amounts of chocolate he had conjured up. Of course, he never would have thought of that if not for the advice of a seventh-year girl, but he didn't need to tell Draco that.

"What do you want, you idiot?" Draco moaned through the pillow he had pulled over his head.

Blaise debated the pros and cons of just shoving the chocolate through the doorway and tiptoeing away, but figured that Draco would figure out it had been him eventually. "I brought you some chocolate…" he ventured timidly.

Draco perked up immediately. "Chocolate?" he questioned anticipatorily.

Blaise groaned inwardly. Of course. It had to be him to bring the angsty Slytherin shemale chocolate. "Yes, Draco, I brought you chocolate. Nice chocolate. Good chocolate. You don't want to hurt someone who brings you chocolate, now do you? Chocolate goooooood." He said soothingly.

"For God's sake, Blaise, I've been turned into a girl, not a brain-dead vegetable like yourself."

"Draco, we've been over this before. No matter what I am—brain-dead vegetable, moron, idiot, dunce, fool, or seemingly tactless Slytherin, I still have one perpetually redeeming feature."

Draco made some noise of disagreement, then reached stealthily for the chocolate in Blaise's outstretched hands.

"Tut, tut, Draco, a bit greedy, aren't we?" Blaise said teasingly, pulling the chocolate just out of Draco's reach.

Draco growled in the back of his throat, the noise sounding more like the sound a cat makes before coughing up a hairball than that of a menacing tiger about to pounce on an unsuspecting victim. Unfortunately, Draco's original goal had been more towards the latter, so he had really failed in that aspect "No, you arsehole. I want the sodding chocolate."

"Awww, but Draco…" Blaise pouted. "You don't even seem like you care about my one redeeming feature… how sad. I guess I'll just have to take my chocolate somewhere else and talk to people who appreciate me."

Draco made an anguished noise that sounded remarkably like a yelp, though if you asked anyone in the surrounding area they would have insisted that it was not a yelp. And if it was, it was a very manly yelp. But you didn't hear that from them, of course. And no, they weren't scared of Draco normally, much less when he was PMSing.

"Blaise, give me the goddamn chocolate or I will rip your balls off and barbeque them before feeding them to your rabid fangirls."

Blaise immediately blanched, and gently set the chocolate down on the bed next to Draco. "Now, I must be off, ta ta, darling!" He said in a voice about nineteen octaves higher than normal before scurrying out of the room with his hands shielding his threatened appendages.

"Blaise?" Draco called after a few moments of gorging himself of Belgian chocolate.

Blaise snuck his head around the doorframe, trying to keep his body as far away from the door as possible. Unfortunately for Blaise, gravity was still in effect when he attempted this, so he ended up crashing flat on his face. This time he managed not to break his nose, but merely stood up and rubbed his hip bone. "Oooh…" he groaned. "I'm not sure I can walk… damn you, hard stone floors! Damn you I say!"

Draco made a vague attempt not to giggle, but failed miserably. "Blaise, you are my best friend, and I can't think of a single redeeming feature you could possibly possess. Is that a bad sign?"

Blaise slumped dejectedly, his overly dramatic body language looking more ludicrous than crushed. "Draco… how could you forget about my killer abs?"

Draco sighed and offered Blaise a hand to pull himself up off the floor. Blaise smirked at the proffered hand, then grabbed it and yanked the blonde onto the floor beside him. Draco squealed in a most feminine manner as he plopped onto the floor, feeling ever more grateful that his father had sent him with new Oriental rugs the previous year. If he hadn't… Draco shuddered to think of the possible Blaise-esque injuries he most likely would have incurred. He quickly lost this train of thought as Blaise began to tickle him, and amazingly high-pitched shrieks echoed throughout the Slytherin dormitories as the… prince? Princess? Various ruler-like personage of power?—of Slytherin rolled on the floor in a fit of giggles.

Draco suddenly ceased his peals of laughter, freezing. "Blaise…" he semi-whimpered. "Was that me? The Pansy-like squeals? Oh god, Blaise, please tell me that wasn't me."

Blaise Zabini was facing a rather more serious problem than he had originally thought. His best friend was squirming around on the floor—one might even say writhing—and said best friend had boobs. Boobs that really hadn't been there as of yesterday. And as of yet, he wasn't used to Draco in his current state.

"Huh?" Blaise said in an amazingly clear and comprehensible answer to Draco's question. "What? You said something?" he muttered as he stared.

Draco slammed his head on the baseboard of his bed. "Blaise." He groaned.

Blaise's eyes never wandered from their targets as he murmured "Yeah? What? Sure."

"BLAISE!" Draco yelled as he waved his hands frantically in front of his chest.

Startled out of his mammary-induced stupor, Blaise jumped as he came back to earth. "Uh. Errr. Sorry, mate…"

"You're an idiot. Get out of my room." Draco hissed, stony-faced.

Blaise slunk out of the room as Draco glared at his exiting back.

* * *

Harry strode out of the headmaster's office, smirking as he saw the startled look on Snape's face as the man jumped back from the opening door. "Eavesdropping, Professor?" he queried as he started the descent on the granite stairs, enjoying the sneer Snape returned without his customary witty comeback nearly as much as the fact that he had gotten off without any punishment whatsoever. 

As he meandered down in the general direction of the great hall, he realized that Hermione hadn't said a word to him since the whole revenge incident. He hadn't expected her to react as strongly as she had to the whole thing… it just didn't make any sense whatsoever to him. He had half expected Ron's reaction to him coming out, though he hadn't wanted it to happen the way it had. He could only imagine what a shock it had been for Ron to turn the corner and see him and Malfoy the way he had… oh dear. Harry had planned to go to the great hall and snag some breakfast—he'd hardly eaten in the past few days—but detoured to the Gryffindor dormitories to find his old best friend.

Seamus and Dean seemed to have stepped into Fred and George's roles as the Gryffindor troublemakers, and they were doing admirably well. They had moved on from simply building card castles of Exploding Snap decks to trying to convince the king from Ron's chess set to move into the fully constructed castle. At first the king had been somewhat dubious, going so far as to enquire the exact location of Seamus and Dean's eyebrows, but after the queen had seen the spiral staircase the two had constructed there was no stopping them from moving the whole set into the castle. Dean was standing behind the castle laughing silently as Seamus extolled the castle's virtues as easily as any realtor to the rapt queen. Harry pulled the portrait over the opening once again as he stepped softly into the room, noting the somewhat ludicrous scene in front of him.

"So really, it has all the amenities you would expect of a stone castle but without the builder's fee!" Seamus chirped cheerfully as the queen nodded. "And we're asking very little of you, really. In return, you and your entire court will be housed for free, remember?"

The queen nodded once again, though this time somewhat skeptically. "You believe that us refusing to do whatever one Ronald Weasley orders us to do is very little, do you?" she said, her voice seeming very small and insignificant when compared to the silent majesty of the queen who had taken Ron in the chess game first year.

"Well, yeah." Seamus sputtered, losing all of his realtor qualities in eight letters and a comma. "You… uh, you… Have you seen the upstairs yet?"

Harry shook his head as he walked past the arguing pair, then seated himself behind Dean on the overstuffed couch. "What exactly are you two trying to do, Dean?" he hissed through his teeth.

"We're trying to convince Ron's chess set to turn on him in exchange for an exploding castle." Dean summarized quite succinctly.

Harry stared blankly, then shook himself. He should really have learned to never expect anything that made even the slightest logical sense from these two… he'd known them for six years, after all. "I… see."

Dean grinned shamelessly. "Excellent, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's exactly how I'd put it, really. Excellent." Harry muttered sarcastically. "Say, have you seen Ron recently?"

Slumping onto the couch next to Harry, Dean shook his head. "Uh, Harry, I'm not sure he really wants to talk to you. He said something about you fraternizing with the enemy last time I asked him what was going on, and then gave me this death glare. I'm not sure approaching him is the best idea for your health or the rest of our sanity."

"What sanity?" Harry quipped, trying to keep the sadness he felt at Ron's grudge from showing.

Dean shrugged. "Damned if I know. Hermione's been acting rather strange lately as well, hasn't she?"

"I… I guess so." Harry agreed faintly.

"So what's with that, then, Harry?" Dean queried, his eyes focused on Harry's.

Harry turned away from Dean's piercing gaze, trying to think of some answer to the blunt question. "I… I don't know."

Dean made an odd sort of cough-laugh in the back of his throat. "Bull, Harry. You know exactly why."

"Well… sort of."

"No sort of about it, mate. What happened?"

Harry sighed. "Well…remember when we did the heating draughts?"

* * *

Hermione paced the room angrily. "And now he just abandons us for Malfoy? Malfoy, of all people!" 

Ron nodded. "Weren't we supposed to go to Hogsmeade this weekend?"

"YES." Hermione flat-out yelled. "Yes, Ronald, we were. And do you know why we no longer are?"

Ron shook his head meekly, though he had an inkling of suspicion of what this tirade was about.

"Because our best friend has fallen for Malfoy. Now, I had no major objections to this at first. Other than Malfoy being a pretentious bastard."

"Other than that, yeah." Ron echoed, crossing his arms and furrowing his brow.

Hermione slammed her book down on the table. "But now he's gone completely out of his mind. He's forgotten that even when we've had our own things going on we've been there for him."

Ron was confused. Extremely confused, one might say. Even for Ron. "Wait… what do we need him for right now?"

"Well…" Hermione paused, a puzzled expression on her face. "Nothing, really. But that's not the point, Ronald!"

"Then what IS?" Ron muttered plaintively.

Hermione blinked owlishly. "Errr. Harry abandoned us and his principles for someone he likes?"

Ron shrugged. "Seems like a decent reason to me, really."

"…the someone he likes is Malfoy, Ronald."

"I take that back. And stop calling me Ronald, Herm. You're not my mother."

Hermione groaned and seated herself primly on one of the overstuffed chairs. "That's not the point either! Harry's acting like he doesn't care about us anymore!"

"Well, good riddance. I'm not about to hang out with a fag." Ron grunted.

Hermione gasped, then stalked over to Ron and slapped him full across his face. "Ron, Harry is our friend. It doesn't matter—"

"It bloody well does matter!" Ron yelped, pulling himself up out of his chair and up to his full height. "I've been his friend for six years, Hermione! God only knows how many times we've showered after Quidditch! Who knows what's been going on in his head! My god—don't you get it? This changes everything!"

Hermione shook her head contemptuously. "I'm ashamed of you, Ron." she whispered as she left.

* * *

Hermione burst into the common room, slamming the portrait shut behind her. The Pink Lady gasped in indignation as her frame shook from the impact, shaking her finger at Hermione's departing back and tutting crossly. Seamus and Dean glanced up from their card-castle watching, then turned to each other in confusion as she silently exploded into tears of anger. Dean crept closer as Seamus quickly cast a spell on the castle to immobilize the chess pieces, then strode over to the distraught girl.

"…Hermione?" Dean murmured, lowering himself against the portrait hole to sit next to his sobbing friend.

"He's just… god, Dean, he's an idiot!" Hermione exclaimed, her voice muffled by the tears she had yet to shed.

Seamus mouthed 'Who?', but Dean had no reply. Wrapping one arm around Hermione's shoulders, he pulled her closer. "What happened now, Herm?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.

"He… he's given up on him." Hermione said, brushing her tears away from her eyes.

Dean responded only with a questioning glance, and Hermione sighed. "Ron. He's given up on Harry."

"I see." Dean said quietly, and Seamus threw him another one of those pesky questioning glances. Luckily Dean and Seamus had finely honed the art of having whole conversations through glances, and Seamus understood from Dean's responding glance that Dean would explain the whole thing later.

Hermione turned to Dean and examined his face for the truth. "Did Harry…"

"Yeah, he told me everything. He thought you were angry with him too, though… has something changed?"

Hermione looked down. "I'm a fool, really. I was too self-centered to think of anything besides how this affected me, and I wasn't thinking or caring about how hard this whole thing must be for Harry."

"WHAT whole thing?" Seamus yelped, not able to wait until 'later', whenever that may have been.

"I thought you said he told you!" Hermione exclaimed, punching Dean.

"I did! He did! I mean… agh. You know what I mean." Dean said, rubbing his arm.

Hermione huffed in exasperation. "Then how does he not know?" she said, angrily gesturing at the Irish boy.

Dean sulkily muttered something about not telling Seamus every bloody thing, then turned back to the indignant boy. "Harry plus Malfoy equals action."

Seamus' jaw dropped to somewhere between his ankles, then recognition spread slowly across his face. "That's who he was kissing! Blimey, you were right, it was a bloke!"

Hermione's eyes swept across the chattering pair. "You mean… you don't care?"

"Of course not!" the two chorused.

"Why should we care whether he likes boys, girls, or basilisks?" Seamus said cheerfully.

"Ew. Basilisks?" Hermione said, disgust apparent on her face.

"Merely for emphasis." Seamus reassured quickly, then brightened. "Wait, so what's going on now that our precious Slytherin prince is a girly-man?"

Dean chuckled to himself. "There's no man about him, Seamus."

"Fine then. Girl. Girly-man sounds better, you know."

"But it's not technically accurate…" Hermione chimed in.

"Bloody hell, Hermione…" Dean sighed exasperatedly.

"I'm sorry! It's just not accurate! Draco Malfoy has technically been turned into a girl, assuming the potion those two idiots managed to brew performed its basic function. Eventually his brain will adjust to the change as well, and he'll begin to think like a girl in addition to looking like one. There's not anything manly about him, as Dean said." Hermione argued.

"So… how's Harry taking this, then?" Dean asked once again, trying to change the subject before Hermione became completely irate with the less literate.

"I don't know, that's the thing!" Hermione exclaimed. "He's still mad at me, I think."

Dean chuckled, but there was no humor in it. "He thinks you're still mad at him."

"Oh dear." Hermione sighed, then pulled herself to her feet. "I should go talk to him, really."

"He said he was going to the library before he left earlier." Dean pointed out, standing up and towering over Hermione once again.

"He never went to the library, though. I was there all morning and he never once came in."

* * *

Harry strolled out of the common room, grinning broadly at how well Dean had taken it. He would have told Seamus, too, but he just didn't have the energy to go over the whole story again. Dean would probably fill Seamus in later anyway. Those two were closer than he and Ron had ever been, and most likely closer than he and Ron ever would be again. Harry wandered aimlessly throughout the castle, all thoughts of the library forgotten. He kept replaying the good moments, bad moments, funny moments he and Ron had shared, and he missed Ron already.

Turning the corner, his head connected with a moderately hard object. Harry reeled back in shock as an anguished cry of "My nose! Not again…" echoed through the stone corridors. Harry was less than surprised to determine that the nose his head had apparently slammed into belonged to Blaise Zabini, considering the unfortunate boy's track record when it came to ridiculous injuries. The Slytherin boy recoiled sharply, his momentum carrying him backwards until he collided noisily with the statue of armor standing silently behind him. The sound of the resulting crash carried all the way to the great hall, people jumping to their feet as they heard it. At the sound of the high-pitched shriek that followed, all those who had stood realized it was just another Blaise moment and promptly sat back down to resume their meal.

Blaise looked pitifully up at Harry, the knight's helmet balanced precariously on one side of his head. Harry's only sign of amusement was a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth as he attempted not to burst out laughing at the deranged boy. Offering the fallen idiot a hand, Harry hauled him to his feet. Blaise gingerly fingered the angle his nose now made, and Harry groaned and pulled his wand out.

"I swear to God, Blaise, if you don't learn how to do this yourself you're going to end up dead by next year. Episkey."

Blaise whined in pain as his nose realigned itself, fanning it frantically as white-hot heat coursed through the cartilage. Pressing gently on his nose, he discovered a complete and total lack of pain and subsequently launched himself at the shorter boy. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" he squealed in joy, his voice reaching levels that had been previously unheard from 16-year-old boys who were not opera-singing sopranos.

Harry patted Blaise awkwardly on the back, then choked out "…air…" as Blaise's shoulder blade cut off his air supply. After all, oxygen is considered a good thing in most cultures.

"Oh! Sorry! Sorry! I'm sorry!" Blaise exclaimed, patting Harry gently on the back as he let go immediately.

"It's fine." Harry muttered, rubbing his throat.

"No, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Blaise yelped.

"Shut up, Blaise. And stop apologizing." Harry grumbled.

"…sorry!" Blaise whimpered.

Harry grunted and slumped down at the base of the wall. "You apologize way too much. And don't you dare apologize for that."

"Sorr—I mean, get over it, Potter." Blaise said gruffly.

"…yeah. That's just odd." Harry said, an unbidden smile appearing on his face.

"Sor—" Blaise groaned in frustration as he went to apologize for the thousandth time.

"Seriously, Blaise, it's fine." Harry said, craning his neck to look up at the taller boy. "Sit down, or I'll get a crick in my neck from looking at you."

Blaise glanced questioningly at Harry, wondering why the boy was willing to even look at him, much less speak to him. After all, he'd attempted to turn Harry into a girl. So what possible reason could he have to speak to him?

"…How's Draco?" Harry asked after a minute.

"Hah! I knew it—I mean, he's fine." Blaise said nonchalantly.

Silence fell upon the corridor for a long moment, then Harry turned to Blaise. Blaise could see the worry in Harry's eyes, see that he didn't quite believe Draco was fine.

"Really?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Well… no. He's taken it pretty hard… I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't. He's not quite used to the whole…" Blaise gestured in front of his chest, then made a face. "My god, though, they're HUGE. I mean…"

Harry blinked rapidly as Blaise's mouth opened slightly and his eyes glazed over. "Uhhh… Blaise?" Harry questioned, waving a hand in front of the other boy's face.

Blaise jumped and shook himself as he realized that Harry had started talking to him. He quickly came back to normal—or at least, what passed for normal when Blaise was around. "Uh. Sorry. Yeah. It's rather distracting, really."

"I gathered." Harry said dryly. "Is he okay, though?"

"I guess so. He's just been really upset over the whole thing. I mean, I understand it, but he's been really freaking out over it." Blaise sighed and continued. "I feel bad for messing the whole thing up. I mean, it seems like no matter what happens it's always me who messes it up. I can't manage to do anything without hurting myself—or worse, hurting someone else."

Harry hadn't ever heard a sentiment like this from Blaise before, and didn't quite know how to respond at first. He settled for awkwardly wrapping an arm around Blaise's shoulders and patting his shoulder gently. "I'm sorry." He said, wishing he was eloquent enough to say something that would make the boy realize that it wasn't always his fault. Blaise turned to Harry, a single tear in the corner of his eye, and then turned away again.

"Me too." Blaise whispered. "Me, too."

* * *

Draco slunk out of the Slytherin common room, slight figure draped in an overly large sweatshirt he had found in Blaise's room. His feet lead him along the path he took to Transfiguration every day before he realized that there were no classes on Sundays. Mentally berating himself for acting like Blaise, he wandered aimlessly about the castle for a few moments before coming across a suit of armor splayed along the hallway. Realizing that Blaise must be nearby, he rounded the corner just in time to see Blaise lean over and kiss Harry, whose arm was draped casually around the taller boy's shoulder. Draco watched in horror as Harry's hands slid to rest on Blaise's shoulders, then gasped in shock as his own heart tore in his chest. He turned on his heel and fled the scene, eyes watering with something he couldn't quite define.


	5. five

**CHAPTER FIVE.**

Blaise leaned forward, softly pulling Harry towards him. He was too caught up in the moment to notice the anguished gasp that escaped his best friend's lips, nor hear the hurried footsteps fleeing the scene. Harry's hands met his shoulder's, but Blaise wasn't really paying attention to the dark haired boy's subtle resistance. In fact, he hardly noticed anything until he ran his tongue along Harry's lips, looking to deepen this kiss, and was met with a warm mouth—and some very sharp teeth biting down on his sensitive tongue. He yelped and leapt back.

"The hell wath that foh?" Blaise yelped, a small trickle of blood running out the corner of his mouth.

"I could ask you the same thing, Zabini!" Harry snarled, trying to keep from punching the taller boy.

"You—you—ugh." Blaise muttered, spitting a gob of blood out. "Foh God'th thake, Potteh, you didn't ha' to bite me!"

Harry crossed his arms over his chest and sniffed in a highly feminine manner. "Clearly, you're not so good with the whole not-so-subtle pushing away thing."

"I'm a Thlytherin!"

"…are you trying to prove my point, or yours?"

Blaise groaned, gesturing at his abs. "Abth, not tact."

Harry got up, running a hand through his hair. "I'm going to go this way now. You're going to go that way. This never happened. You try anything like that again, you'll wish you were dead."

"I ahready do!" Blaise muttered, spitting more blood out.

"Go see Pomfrey." Harry called over his shoulder as he left, striding away from Blaise as quickly as he could without running.

And tell her what, exactly? Blaise wondered, trying to right the suit of armor. Seeing as Blaise had the approximate coordination of a great dane on ice, this failed miserably. He gave up, retreating to the Slytherin common room to nurse his bruised pride and battered tongue. To be entirely honest, it was more the pride than the tongue.

* * *

Draco fled the scene, his vision blurred by unshed tears. He had no idea why he was reacting this way—Potter didn't matter to him. If Blaise wanted to go after him, fine. He had no objections. He didn't even like Potter. Potter was just a prop. A sham. He'd used him for an elaborate scheme, that was all. No emotional attachment whatsoever. 

_Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that_… a nagging voice in the back of his head whispered.

He curled up in the corner of a deserted hall, not even knowing what had brought him this way or where he was. He didn't even hear the footsteps approaching, didn't notice anyone was there until he saw a blurred shape crouch down in front of him.

"Draco?" Harry queried, worry apparent in his voice.

Draco glanced up, then turned away to the wall on the other side of him. Damning himself for picking a corner to cry in—Malfoys were never cornered, especially not by well-meaning Gryffindors—he pushed the other boy. Harry lost his balance and crashed to the floor, surprised at the force Draco used against him.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, hoping the response he got this time wouldn't result in grievous bodily harm.

"You know, my father always told me not to associate with whores." Draco remarked casually to the wall.

Harry flushed. "And what the hell do you mean by that?"

"People who declare they're in love with someone and then go off and snog someone else should hardly be in Gryffindor, now, should they?" Draco asked the wall once again, ignoring the boy crouched behind him.

"What… oh."

Draco finally turned to the other boy, tears still unshed glistening in his eyes. "What the hell was that?"

Harry smiled ruefully, then leaned back against the wall. "Your fellow Slytherin—who, by the way, has no tact whatsoever—made a vague attempt at making a move on me after I made a vague attempt to comfort him over your situation."

Draco blinked, a single teardrop falling from his silver eyes. "Wha…"

"I… I do like you. And I didn't kiss Blaise." Harry admitted, praying Draco wouldn't flip out again.

"I'm killing Blaise."

Harry chuckled. "Getting a bit jealous, now, are we?"

"No, getting a bit angry for being turned into a girl. I wouldn't react this way normally, you know."

Grinning at this new revelation, Harry sighed. "Of course you wouldn't. That would be undignified."

"Well… yes." Draco said. "And… well, slightly ludicrous. I'm the Prince of Slytherin, after all. Hogwarts royalty should be on their best behavior at all times."

Harry tried his best to hide the grin that crossed his face, raising his hand to cover his mouth. The creases around his eyes betrayed him as his shoulders shook in silent laughter. His laughter only grew as Draco punched him weakly on the shoulder, the weakly clenched fist barely causing him any pain at all.

"What?" Draco queried indignantly. "What the hell is so funny?"

Harry broke out into full laughter, the sound echoing through the halls. "Clearly," he sputtered, eyes watering from laughing so hard. "Clearly, making out with random boys is you on your best behavior. Clearly, trying to get revenge on said random boys by turning them into girls is you on your best behavior. Clearly—"

"Okay, okay, I get your point. Shut up."

"Or what? You'll kiss me again?"

"If I must."

* * *

Blaise stumbled into the Charms classroom, his tongue feeling about nine times the size it usually did. He was rather focused on his various aches and pains, and as such didn't notice the numerous obstacles in his path as he made his way up to the front of the classroom. 

Hermione turned as she heard the exclamation of pain—Blaise fell over a desk and hit his forehead on the edge of the table in front of the desk, then tried to sit down on a chair that wasn't there and collapsed into a heap of splayed limbs. She tried vainly not to laugh, then allowed a solitary giggle to escape her mouth before walking over to the idiotic boy. He had somehow managed to get his tie caught on the table leg when he fell, and was presently making some sort of attempt to get up without strangling himself. The only noise that escaped his constricted throat was a sort of 'Awk!' that she determined was his response to strangulation. Quickly muttering a few simple charms, she sat him down on a convenient pillow and went to work on the knot around the table leg.

"Wouldn't tha' be simpleh if you jus' used a chahm?" Blaise queried.

"Sadly, wizards have never invented a charm to untie knots, much to the chagrin of the clumsier variety similar to yourself. And shouldn't you be saying thank you, not questioning my method?"

Blaise blinked in a most chagrined manner, then muttered "T'ank oo."

"And what on earth have you done to your tongue?" Hermione asked, tutting as she worked away at the knot.

"Po'er bi' me."

Hermione laughed. "Why on earth would Harry—oh dear."

Blaise sighed, then yanked the tie desperately in an attempt to avoid further embarrassment that day. Considering that the tie was attached to the table that was currently at the same level of his forehead, this wasn't very smart. Poor, pitiful Blaise. He recoiled in shock as the table slammed into his already-bruised forehead, tears welling up in his eyes. Hermione wordlessly set back to work on the tie, trying very hard to ignore Blaise.

"I just don't understand. Why would you—how could you—what on earth, Zabini?" she asked after a minute.

"Can 'oo fix my tongue?" Blaise muttered pleadingly.

Hermione murmured a quick charm and his tongue shrank back to its normal size. "Thank you!" Blaise squealed, pulling the girl into a bear-hug. Hermione froze, then patted him weakly on the back.

"You're… welcome?" She said questioningly, wondering what on earth had brought about the change in the Slytherin boy.

"Okay, boys and girls, today we're going to be practicing some conjuring charms!" Flitwick said, flying into the classroom on a magenta broomstick. Landing gently on his desk, he smiled as the broom gently –poofed- out of existence. "We will be conjuring previously enchanted items out of thin air—no summoning charms, mind you! The first one to Accio anything not directly related to the study of this charm will receive detention with Filch." The simultaneous shudder that ran through the class was more than enough response for him on this count. "Now, get to work! The theorems behind this charm are on page six hundred and forty-two of your textbooks, for those of you who view magic as something more than just a convenience." The effect of this highly serious set of directions was somewhat ruined by the rubber ducks parading around his head, most likely conjured up by a bored Slytherin. The class giggled, then quickly pulled out their wands.

Hermione slid over to Blaise, wondering why he had hugged her, why in God's name he had been attempting to stick his tongue down Harry's throat, why he was such a clumsy idiot. The last one had just been a given since first year, but she didn't know whether it was genuine or he was just trying to hide something.

"Hermione!" Blaise said, smiling broadly at her. Coming from someone who had acted like he loathed her for the past six years, such a beatific smile was a bit of a shock. "Do you know how to do this?"

"What the hell did you do to my best friend, Zabini?" Hermione bluntly asked, her voice shriller than usual.

Blaise turned away, his eyes suddenly clouding slightly. "Can we talk about that later?"

"I guess... what don't you understand about this spell?"

Blaise turned, idly tapping his wand on his left palm. "I don't know… Charms has always just kind of escaped me. I just don't get the point of muttering 'Moosicus Altericus!' and flicking a wand around for a few seconds." As he said this, a beam of blue light shot out of his wand and headed straight for Neville.

"Neville, DUCK!" Hermione screamed, standing up on her chair. Neville turned and saw the spell coming straight for him. Throwing himself out of the way, Neville landed safely on a largish pillow to the right of him. The spell bounced off the mirror behind him and shot straight back in the direction it had originated from. Hermione let out a startled squeak as she realized what was inevitable, then gasped as strong hands wrapped around her waist and pulled her down. Blaise turned once again—and took the spell right between his big, brown eyes. There was a great flash and a puff of steam, and when the room cleared once again Blaise Zabini was no longer there. In his place was a moose perched precariously on two desks, with the same brown eyes. The confused look was much the same as well.

The moose suddenly lurched dangerously to one side as the desks on which his feet were resting began to slide apart, and he crashed to the floor. Making an odd moose-noise, he raised himself to his feet once again—but only to crash into the bookcase as he fell to the side once again. The books rained down on his body, and he yelped. At least, if moose could yelp. He would have yelped if he could have.

Draco slunk into the room, Harry following close behind. The pair both had numerous lovebites covering their exposed necks, and lips that looked like bad collagen advertisements. The room turned in stunned silence, and they turned to each other.

"What's with the moose?" Harry asked casually, slinging an arm around Draco's shoulders.

* * *

Harry wandered out of the Charms classroom, shoulders shaking in mirth. How Blaise managed to injure himself as much as he did, he would never know. The whole class was still in an uproar about it, though Flitwick was making an effort to keep it down to a dull roar. Clearly the diminutive teacher could use some tips from McGonagall or Snape. 

Then, of course, there was the matter of Blaise being able to transform a human into a moose with no effort and no knowledge of the spell he was attempting. Blaise had to be some sort of fluke, or some genetic freak—it just wasn't normal for a student to be able to perform such an advanced spell with no practice. Especially when said student could barely keep themself upright, much less complete a simple spell.

It didn't really matter how he'd done it, as long as they could undo it. Flitwick had called McGonagall and Dumbledore in, and they were working on returning Blaise to normal. Since no one knew the spell he had used, it was mostly guesswork, but between the two of them they were bound to come up with something.

What mattered right then was what had just happened between him and Draco, though he didn't want to admit it. It didn't seem to matter what he had decided, Draco just ended up doing whatever the hell he wanted and Harry went along with it. He hated himself for being such a pushover, but at the same time he couldn't control himself. All he could do was beat himself up for it afterwards, for all the good that did him.

But he didn't trust himself around Draco. He seemed to misplace his spine every time Draco looked at him, and he only regained it after the fact. Like when Draco had kissed him. It had been amazing, spectacular, wonderful. It hadn't been what he wanted, though. What he wanted was something that made sense. Something that he could trust, something that would always be there. Draco wouldn't always be there, and he knew that. It just wasn't the blonde boy's style, to be tied down to one person or one thing for any amount of time.

If things seemed so easy and felt so right, didn't that mean something? Shouldn't it?

He would have to speak to Draco about all of this eventually, but he didn't want to. Every time he went to talk to Draco… Harry would forget about all of his inhibitions and his doubts and just want to be with him, not caring how it worked or what he had to give up. When he was apart from him, everything was different, and he kept second-guessing himself and over thinking every move he made.

* * *

Hermione rolled her eyes at the spectacle in front of her, hardly believing the stupidity of her classmates. Half were collapsing in laughter, half had slightly shocked expressions, and… well, she was out of halves, but a select few fit into neither category. Draco merely stood there and shook his head, a bemused smirk on his face. The smirk fell away as Hermione strode up to him-her? determinedly. 

"Granger." He-she? said, nodding slightly.

She sighed, propping a fist on her hip. "What are you trying to do?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," s/he proclaimed, sounding much like the old Draco. "I'm not trying to do anything. I'm standing here and enjoying the view. Why do you ask?"

"I want to know what's going on between you and my best friend."

Draco turned slightly, not wanting to have this conversation in the middle of a class. "And why wouldn't you ask him what's going on between us?"

"Because I want to hear it from you, Malfoy. I want to know what exactly you're planning with this whole thing, whether you feel anything for him or whether you just want to make a fool out of him. I'd not put it past you, you know." Hermione said bluntly. "Why the sudden reversal? And don't try and claim there wasn't one… you told him that kiss meant nothing, then the two of you walk in here with lovebites that look like something the giant squid would be proud of?"

"Granger… the only reason anything started between me and Potter was that I needed a reason not to go into Hogsmeade with Parkinson last weekend. That's all. Now…" he trailed off, not knowing what to tell her. He didn't know whether he liked Harry or not—he couldn't answer that honestly, not even to himself. Maybe especially not to himself. He didn't seem to be very good at the whole emotional thing, even as a girl.

"Now what, Malfoy? What's going on in your twisted mind now?" Hermione spat.

"I don't know, okay? I don't know." Draco sighed, resting his head in his hands. "I just don't know."

"Well, that makes two of us. You need to figure that out before you do anything more, or else you'll both get hurt. And before you ask how you'd get hurt, keep in mind that I don't like to see my friends in pain and I know more hexes than you ever will."

Draco didn't answer, just got up and walked out of the classroom. Yes, he had to talk to Harry and figure things out. But somehow he thought things might be easier if he didn't, if he just let things go on as they were. After all, neither one of them was taking things too seriously. None of this really mattered to either of them.

He knew that was a lie, but he didn't want to admit it. Even the slightest possibility that he liked someone, actually felt some sort of emotion for someone… he shuddered. He didn't want to give anyone else that power over him, didn't want to trust someone enough that they could hurt him.

* * *

Harry woke on the couch in front of the fire, his face taut from the heat. He licked his lips and winced at their dry, cracked texture… clearly falling asleep in front of a fire was not one of the best plans he had come up with recently. He barely remembered coming back to the common room after Charms, though he was too tired to have paid attention to anything that wasn't life threatening. 

"And sleeping beauty has awoken!" Dean proclaimed, gesturing wildly. "You missed the commotion after Charms. What with all the strange transformations going on lately, Dumbledore said that the sixth years won't have classes for the rest of the week."

"Dean, it's Thursday. The rest of the week is one day." Harry fumbled around on the floor looking for his glasses before he realized they were on his face, then sat up.

Dean smiled broadly. "But it's a day we don't have classes!"

"You're a git, Dean." Seamus said as he walked up to the pair. "Harry, why'd you skip out on Charms so early?"

Harry winced. He didn't really want to go into all of that, but he trusted Dean and Seamus. Sort of. "It's just the whole Draco thing."

"Ahhh. And how is that working, exactly? Do you not care that he's no longer a bloke, or what?" Seamus said with his usual bluntness.

"I…" Harry said noncommittally. "I don't know. I can get past it for a little while, when I'm with him, but when I'm away from him I keep over thinking everything." He slumped down on the couch, looking up at Seamus and Dean. "It's…complicated."

"Well, yeah, but nothing in your life's ever been simple." Dean pointed out, seating himself next to the black-haired boy.

"That's exactly it. I just want things to be simple, for once in my life. Just once." Harry said miserably.

"Harry, mate," Seamus said, clapping Harry on the back. "You're the boy who lived. That's not a simple thing."

"Yeah… well… it could be!" If I wasn't gay and in love with my biggest rival, maybe. Oh, yeah, and if Voldemort wasn't trying to take me out. Gee. Wouldn't that be nice. "It could be…" Harry said dejectedly.

"Yup, and Blaise is a moose." Seamus said before realizing that Blaise was, in fact, a moose. "Er… caribou. Blaise is a caribou."

Dean groaned. "Seamus, moose and caribou are the same thing."

"No they're not! They are entirely different. They're different species."

"Uh… shouldn't the plural of moose be meese?" Harry ventured.

Seamus fell onto the sofa next to Harry, the impact jarring the antique piece. "Oi, Hermione, c'mere for a minute. Can you settle a debate for us?"

Hermione jerked as she heard her name being called, then hurried over to the trio. "Definitely. What's up, Seamus?"

"First of all, are caribou and moose not entirely different species?" Seamus asked loftily.

"Um, actually, they're the exact same thing. The only—"

"Ha! You're wrong, Seamus! They're the exact same thing!" Dean shouted triumphantly, then looked around as the common room fell silent and turned to stare at the dark boy. "Uh… was that louder than I thought it was?"

"Aye, you numbskull." Seamus muttered.

"The distinction between moose and caribou is that caribou have been domesticated, while moose are wild." Hermione said, forehead wrinkling in thought. "Shouldn't the plural of moose be meese?"

"That's what I said, but no one was paying attention." Harry said forlornly.

Hermione walked over to the couch, plopping herself down between Seamus and Harry. "So, Harry… what exactly happened earlier?"

"Um… I'll explain somewhere else." Harry said, glancing around the common room. "Maybe the library?"

"Sure. Come on, let's go." Hermione said, getting to her feet. "Seamus, Dean, we'll talk to you later, okay?"

"But Hermione…" Seamus said plaintively, lower lip jutting out. "We want to hear all the gory details too!"

Harry shook his head, the faintest hints of a smile playing over his lips. "I'll explain everything later."

* * *

"And then he kissed me, and, and…" Harry said, trailing off. 

"And you bit his tongue." Hermione finished, rolling her eyes.

Harry's eyes widened in surprise as the brunette spoke. Either Hermione knew him way too well, or someone had told her. "Uh, yeah. How did you know?"

"Blaise told me."

"Since when are you and Blaise on speaking terms?" _Since when are you and Blaise on a first-name basis?_

Hermione rolled her eyes again. Really, something was going to have to change… she was starting to get migraines from all the eye-rolling she'd been doing. "I don't know… maybe since our best friends are dating?"

Harry jumped in his seat. "Wait, did Blaise use the word 'dating'? Did Draco? Who said dating?"

"I did, Harry. What's got you so on edge?"

Harry sighed, slamming his head down on the table all of a sudden. "I have no idea what's going on, and every time I talk to Draco we end up kissing or something, and nothing ever gets figured out."

"So… what do you want to be going on?" Hermione asked, propping her chin on her fist.

Harry lifted his head up from the table, green eyes piercing into the brown eyes of his best friend. "I don't know, okay? I don't know." Harry sighed and folded his arms underneath his head. "I just don't know."

"Well then, I guess you and Draco are in agreement on one thing at least." Hermione muttered. Boys could be so pigheaded about… well, about everything, really. These two were so obviously in love, or at least in major like, and they couldn't even take a minute to figure it out. Idiots.

Harry perked up, sitting up in his chair again. "What's that?"

"Neither of you has any idea what you're doing, or how you're going to figure this whole mess out." Harry just looked at Hermione, and finally the silence became too awkward to bear. "…what?"

"I'm not quite sure how anyone would know how to figure this whole mess out." Harry muttered. "I'm in love with my biggest rival. Said biggest rival shoved me up against a wall and kissed me. And now he's been turned into a girl by his best mate, who has managed to turn himself into a moose." He paused for a moment to take in the whole situation. "A MOOSE!"

"Shhh!" Madame Pince said angrily, bustling over to the pair. "Miss Granger, I'm quite used to the antics of your comrades, but I simply do not expect you to stand by as the library rules are being blatantly disregarded!"

"I'm sor—"

"Out! Out I say!" Hermione took one look at the pulsing vein on the librarian's forehead and decided that apologies had a time and place, and now was probably not either the time or the place.

The two took one look at each other as they exited into the corridor and collapsed into a minor fit of giggles. "I don't think she likes you very much…" Hermione said, gasping for air.

"Me? It's you she was mad at!" Harry said indignantly as he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

Hermione smirked in an almost Malfoy-esque way. "She's never kicked me out for a first offence before… she's always given me two or three chances to incur her wrath before going that far."

"Anyway…" Harry said, getting to his feet and offering Hermione a hand up. "What do you think I should do?"

"Well, goodness, Harry, I don't know, maybe you could try actually talking to Malfoy?" Hermione said facetiously.

"Yes, because that's worked so well all…" Harry paused, trying to figure out how many times he'd attempted to have a somewhat normal conversation with the Slytherin boy. "Well, all the times I've tried that so far."

"Harry, have you talked to Ron at all?" Hermione asked all of a sudden, realizing that the authoress had completely forgotten about Ron's antipathy towards the whole Harry/Draco situation.

Harry turned away, trying to decide what to say. That Ron didn't even look at him when they had classes together? That Ron had switched dormitories with one of the fifth-year boys rather than sleep in the same room as the boy who had been his best friend for the past six years? That Ron didn't seem to care that their friendship had disappeared overnight?

"Uh, no, why?" Harry heard himself say. Apparently he wasn't going to say any of those other things. Ah well.

Hermione closed her eyes, trying to decide what to say. That Ron had been even more out of it lately than he was usually? That Ron was acting like a thousand-year-old curmudgeon who had given up on the world as a whole? That Ron had basically said she could pick between him or Harry, and that she'd told him she refused to choose?

"Uh, no reason, really." Hermione heard herself say. Apparently she wasn't going to say any of those other things. Ah well. "Really, though, Harry, you need to talk to Malfoy."

"Well, I've tri—"

"And not like you have recently. Like, on opposite sides of a table." Hermione paused, considering the possible outcomes of that scenario. "A really wide table."

Harry nodded silently.

"Maybe you should have me or Blaise there as well. As a sort of mediator. Both of us would probably be better, actually." Hermione said. "D'you want me to talk to Blaise and see if we can set this up?"

"I guess so…" Harry said, wondering what the hell he was going to get himself into this time. Considering how spineless he tended to become around Draco, having Hermione there would probably be a good idea, but at the same time… he really didn't want Blaise seeing him in his jelly-fish like state.

* * *

Ron looked up from his sketchbook, snickering to himself in the empty room. _This would work… it had to._

* * *

**A/N:** So, this is where we've left off. Yeah. I haven't even thought about writing any more of this... ugh. I'm sorry. At this point, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to write the rest of this for a while now. I've just changed a lot since I started writing this. For a while I thought I would start writing again when I got to 300 reviews... now, geh. I don't know. Let me know what you think of this chapter, then I'll get back to you. I may or may not continue this story. 


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